My next show after Maiden was
King Diamond, Overkill & Night Demon. I'll spare all the details because I got COVID at this show
Anyways, all 3 bands were fun, and I'd seen them all before, so I knew what I was in for.
Because I had COVID, I had to skip
WASP/Armored Saint and I couldn't even find someone to take my free ticket. A few days after the Toronto show, the frontman for WASP showed that he's totally insane. I'll stay out of politics here, but this dude is nuts and it's a shame I couldn't go to the show while I was ignorant of his beliefs. If they come back, I definitely won't be going.
Now that I've recovered, I saw
Exodus, Havok, Candy, and Dead Heat last night. Dead Heat was a fun crossover band. All of their riffs hit harder live, and they're a good band, but their songs aren't particularly memorable.
Candy totally sucks. They were the odd band out. The other 3 all played thrash, and Candy was a deathcore (?) band that randomly had industrial and grindcore moments? I'm not even sure if I'm describing them correctly, but very much not my thing.
Havok rules. Their frontman also has terrible political beliefs, but at least he wasn't doing anything embarrassing on stage. I really like the new EP they released, so it was nice to hear both new songs. They mentioned that their bass player was not with them for a few shows, so their tour manager stepped in to play bass - this is the second band I've heard the same story for (Orden Ogan being the other). I have no idea how every random person associated with a tour is good enough at any instrument to step in, but it's always impressive. Today I revisited their debut and was surprised at how great it was - I normally listen to their other 4 records.
Exodus just destroyed everything. For various reasons, I hadn't seen them since 2011, and I've never seen them with Zetro singing. The setlist was actually pretty unusual IMO and I loved it. I did not expect 3 songs from Fabulous Disaster, and they skipped some of the essential Bonded by Blood stuff in favour of a couple of slightly deeper cuts (to be fair, there are no deep cuts on that album because it is 9 perfect songs in a row). I've been jamming Exodus all day because they just have more riffs and better riffs than everyone else. I'm pretty sure that was one of the largest and craziest pits I've ever seen at a show. Despite the band's age and drug history, they were in great shape. They have tons of energy, and you can tell these guys just live for thrash. Even after beating cancer, Tom Hunting was a madman on drums. Strongly recommended.
