Artist: Venom
Venue: Irving Plaza (New York, NY)
Opener: Goatwhore, Early Man
Date: 9/5/2006
Label: Sanctuary Records

The first round of tour dates for Venom had been cancelled citing “Immigration Issues”, and given the amount of political hoops to jump through to fix them it seemed that the shows with Devildriver as their opener would simply never take place. Yet it was only a few days after these dramas that the announcement of rescheduling would come and this time the group would perform with both Early Man and Goatwhore. The sigh of relief on this would be felt in the entire Metal community as it had been almost ten years since Venom performed on U.S. soil (this was a mere one off appearance on the Milwaukee Metal Fest) and more than twenty since any headlining appearance or full tour was done over here (1983 if I am not mistaken). The venue of choice would be Irving Plaza and judging by the attendees you could feel the Black Metal in every corner of the room. As I entered I would be surprised to find tickets still available and while it did not seem sold out completely there was an amazing attendance for the bands return. The reasoning for my surprise is because of the age difference in the larger part of the audience and years of Venom’s absence. Many of the folks were from back in the day, but the larger contingent seemed to be as young as when they last headlined here and perhaps even younger. It’s great to see this faction supporting the bands and not wasting time on the crap that is pushed down our throats by the mainstream music industry. In terms of Metal music, the phrase “youth is wasted on the young” does not apply whatsoever.
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