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August 28th, 2003 - Irving Plaza, NYC, New York
Overal Concert Rating - 8.3 out of 10
Anthrax Rating - 9.4 out of 10
So the day finally comes, for me to see Anthrax. Meet Max, Domanic and Beth at the train station we get on to the train into the city, and our journey has begun.
We get there about an hour early, eat a few New York City hot dogs, and finally the line starts to move up, as we enter the concert. Within a few mintues, Dry Kill Logic is on stage. If you haven't listened to them, which I haven't, until they were on stage infront of me, they are a rather brutal band. Heavy Riffs, Heavier Vocals that just pound away at you making you want to punch someone in the face.... repeatly. So of course a nice size pit broke out, which OF COURSE I was in. Since I dont know any of Dry Kill Logic (or DKL as they call themself I believe) songs I can't tell you what they played, but they played 2 new songs for their next album. So if you like their stuff, their next album definatly sounded promising to me. DKL played for a little over a half hour, and put out a good amount of energy for an opening band. I'd say they are definatly worth a listen.
Next band up: Luna Coil. Now this band I heard alot about, and even listened to some of their stuff, and I was expecting to see a good show... and I was let down. Now I'm not going to say Luna Coil was bad, but they just shouldn't be playing before Anthrax. First off, they are too mellow to have a mosh pit, which blows, cause I fucking hate standing watching a band, instead of being able to particapte in the show. So not having a mosh pit sucked, and after the 3rd song, I realized they all sounded the same. The last 2 songs they played were the only 2 that didn't sound the same, and they actually seemed liked decent songs. Luna Coil would be good playing for Mallcore band, even though they aren't really a Mallcore band, if you get what I'm saying. But Luna Coil did draw a crowd because they had a lot more cheers then they did boo's, so figure out if you like this band for yourself.
And the band you've been waiting... ANTHRAX!!!
The theme song from The Blues Brothers played as they came on stage, all wearing black shirts with the new Anthrax symbol on it. Then they started the intro track from We've Come For You, so as you guessed, What Doesn't Die was the first song they played, followed by Black Dahlia. So of course the pits were brutal to start with because everyone was just standing there for Luna Coil. If the pits weren't enough for you then, Caught In A Mosh was the next song played. By this time, I was already pretty beat up, so I don't remember the whole setlist but they soon played Safe Home, followed by Black Lodge to calm things down. After that things got crazy again. Next thing I remember was Frank making a speech about how we aren't the fucking MTV generation, that we still have a soul (this because MTV Video Music Awards were going on the same night in NYC). Then another speech about how the next song is about freedom, and that people are fighting in Iraq for our freedom and they went into Refuse To Be Denied. Next speech is about the history of rap/rock, and then they played a GREAT version of Bring The Noise. They go off stage, come back for an encore which is like 4 or 5 songs, but ends with Be All End All, in which Frank gets up on the amps, and stage dives off doing a flip into the crowd (I got to catch his leg!). Right as Be All End All comes to an end, they play a cover of Whiplash and then walk off stage for good, to the great sounds of "Uncle Fucker" from the South Park Movie. All in all, you can definatly tell ALL of Anthrax was happy to be in their home of NYC, and they definatly showed it to the crowd, the crowd was DEFINATLY feeling it! This was the most pumped up show I've been to in a long long time, if not ever!
Now my concert journey did NOT end there!
Max and Domanic decided to go home from there, but Beth and I decided to be troopers and wait for Anthrax to come out, which they did. Anthrax is the NICEST band i've ever meet, they sat their and talked to Beth and I and the maybe 8 other people that stuck around over an hour and half to wait for them. They took pictures with everyone, signed anything you put infront of them, and I even got a drum head from Charile, which I got signed by the whole band! They talked about anything and everything, they talked about anything schduled for the next tour, new albums, even THANKED US! for supporting them. Freddy even introduced his wife to basically everyone. This was the first time ever that i've seen and actually leave in taxi cabs instead of a tour bus.
So by now, its 2am, Beth and I missed the last train, which left at 1:30, and we spent the nite sleeping on the stairs outside of Grand Central Station as I nursed by black eye, busted knee and sore body. Didn't make it home till I caught a 5:46am train out of the city, and got home at 7:15, to get 4 hours of shut eye before heading off for work, still battered. BUT this was the best concert I've EVER BEEN TO, and probably will remain that way for a long long time. Thank you Anthrax for kicking major ass!! Can't wait to see you guys again!
- S|aYeR
SOp of #heavymetal-mp3 on Phazenet
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