Thrashfest – LIVE: Elysée Montmartre 2010

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As Overkill‘s annual Killfest tour has continued to gain success year on year the scope for other thrash metal package tours to follow in their footsteps has grown, and gave rise to a Kreator-topped package using the Thrashfest name, one which has been used many times before.

Special guests for Kreator’s 25th anniversary trek were the same ones Overkill invited to the first Killfest, California bay area veterans Exodus. Fellow Americans Death Angel and rising Greek youngsters Suicidal Angels completed the touring bill which disappointingly avoided the UK.

So to Paris, and the venue which carries a thoroughly unjust reputation, the Elysée Montmartre. World famous it may be but the nondescript, weary-looking room is not an inspiring place, and doesn’t possess the best acoustics on the circuit either. Nevertheless, failings in the tour routing and the venue were more than made up for by performances of the bands, even if the crowd for a band of Death Angel’s calibre was pitiful.

Suicidal Angels

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Suicidal Angels have rightly been getting themselves the better support slots on thrash tours in Europe of late, fending off undeserved competition from the likes of Gama Bomb with a sound that actually has some unique elements to it. Their second album, Dead Again, may have been issued with a bit of whimper by fledging label NoiseArt Records, but it contains another batch of their aggressive, muscular thrash without a reedy vocal in sight.

As for any opening band the number of people who made the effort to arrive early enough to see them – their half-hour set started at 18:00 – was low, but it was clear that the band impressed. By third song Dead Again a small but passionate group had formed at the front of the stage and the patrons scattered throughout the rest of the venue were either headbanging in their own little world or at the very least nodding in quiet approval as the band did their best to charge around the limited stage.

Their set was a little too one-sided in favour of the new album, only including two songs from the excellent Sanctify The Darkness and nothing from their debut Eternal Domination, but since most seemed previously unfamiliar with the band it probably made sense to play the newest, most readily available material. They converted enough people to sell a few records, and if every show on the tour had a similar story it will have been a very successful trip for them.

“ aggressive, muscular thrash ”

Setlist: Reborn In Violence / Bleeding Holocaust / Dead Again / Violent Abuse / Beggar of Scorn / … Lies / Final Dawn / Apokathilosis

Death Angel

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Just 20 minutes after Suicidal Angels had left the stage California’s Death Angel arrived and immediately launched into I Chose The Sky from their acclaimed new CD Relentless Retribution, showing straight away that their trademark high-energy performance was going to be present in full effect tonight.

Even more limited by the stage than Suicidal Angels were – a necessary evil for a singer who doesn’t play an instrument – there were a few near misses as Mark Osegueda, Rob Cavestany and Ted Aguilar dashed around as best they could but their visual showing was as fast paced as their songs, wasting none of their 50 minutes and setting the standard for their arguably bigger compatriots to follow.

Of all the older thrash bands touring heavily at the moment Death Angel come up with the most interesting setlists. They don’t change it much throughout a tour, but each tour has a markedly different playlist to the one before and they’re never packed exclusively with the most obvious songs like, for instance, Slayer‘s are. Their Thrashfest setlist was the natural progression to the previous European tour, where they debuted River of Rapture ahead of the release of the new album. That song remained, and was joined by three more new ones. Sometimes giving over such a high proportion of a set to new material can be unpopular, but it didn’t seem to affect the crowd’s enthusiasm, even if the size of the audience was disappointingly small still.

Indeed it was clear throughout Death Angel’s set, and through Exodus’s as well, that most of the people who would attend this show were here for Kreator as beyond the main throng pressing the front of the stage, the rest of the venue didn’t properly fill up to the back until much later. But that doesn’t excuse how low the attendance for Death Angel was, and the band should feel justifiably disappointed with the willingness of the Paris crowd to come out a little earlier than normal. They didn’t let it diminish their passion for the show though, and gave it as much as they always do. In terms of performance, they stole the show tonight.

“ setting the standard ”

Setlist: I Chose The Sky / Evil Priest / Buried Alive / Mistress of Pain / Claws In So Deep / Seemingly Endless Time / Truce / River of Rapture / The Ultra Violence > Thrown To The Wolves

Exodus

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Exodus were caught in the unenviable position between Death Angel and Kreator. Death Angel had already delivered the night’s best performance, and Kreator were going to be the beneficiaries of the larger crowd. But it was still a good chance to impress.

Like Death Angel, Exodus have always been a high-energy band and they attacked this show with their trademark vigour and sharper-than-sharp riffs; lead guitarist Gary Holt still being one of the most accurate players in the business. But crowds are increasingly finding singer Rob Dukes’ tough-guy stage attitude and cliché banter irritating and the number of Exodus fans calling for the band to kiss and make up with former vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza is growing. Exodus don’t come to Paris that often though, so the modicum of Exodus fans amongst the Kreator and general thrash follows crashed the barrier all the same.

Violence-inciting and dated “wall of death” antics aside, Dukes is starting to sound like he’s reading a script, lifted from ‘How To Be A Thrash Metal Front-man In 10 Easy Steps’, and this tiresome aspect of the band’s show, besides Holt’s frantic excitement, needs balancing. Sadly Exodus aren’t currently able to do that with their equally tired setlist. Besides swapping out a couple of tracks from previous album The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit A for cuts from new disc Exhibit B: The Human Condition, their set remains rigidly unchanged, with the same old “hits”.

It can’t be argued that they don’t acknowledge at least most of their catalogue with their sets, but they play the same songs from those albums every tour (War Is My Shepherd and Blacklist from Tempo of The Damned, Deathamphetamine from Shovel Headed Kill Machine etc.). Even when they headlined their own shows in the UK before commencing the Thrashfest tour most of the extra tracks used were ones from their last tour (Iconoclasm, Piranha, Children of A Worthless God).

In a short set some hits are expected, but the entire set shouldn’t be as predictable as this. And nor should the show itself. Exodus’ energy, history and material can’t be denied, but the point has been reached where a little more effort is needed.

“ trademark vigour and sharper-than-sharp riffs ”

Setlist: The Ballad of Leonard & Charles / Beyond The Pale / A Lesson In Violence / Deathamphetamine / Blacklist / Bonded By Blood / War Is My Shepherd / The Toxic Waltz / Strike of The Beast / Good Riddance

Kreator

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Thrashfest itself was built around Kreator’s 25th anniversary which has so far not seen any special releases to commemorate it, but did allow fans to vote for songs to be included in the live setlist. As with most fan-voted setlists this didn’t produce many surprises, but did ensure it was varied.

Kreator had promised an “old school” setlist for the tour, which started earlier in the year in North America, but in the end it turned out to be a fairly comprehensive career-spanning setlist, with gems from the first albums alongside tracks from the last couple. Predictably their largely unpopular ’90s output was not heavily represented, but it hasn’t been for years, and the set was far from an ’80s nostalgia trip.

Their live show itself is not particularly entertaining, visually speaking. They’d set the stage up with walkways either side of the drum riser, but barely used them, and even during the longer instrumental passages of various songs front-man Mille Petrozza barely left the area immediately behind his microphone stand and monitors. Guitarist Sami Yli-Sirniö and bassist Christian Giesler did their best to move around either side of Mille, but Kreator are one of those bands where everyone only really pays attention to the front-man, so their efforts went largely unnoticed.

Nevertheless, for 90 minutes Kreator delivered what the by-this-time packed venue wanted, which was prime German thrash metal. Despite the wider-than-expected range of the songs included, there was a certain uniformity to their selection, which could potentially attract the “monotonous” label, not without reason, and it was interesting to note that the three new songs included from 2009′s Hordes of Chaos appeared to garner as much crowd participation in their choruses as most of the older tracks, indicating perhaps a newer audience attending Kreator shows in 2010.

Although the crowd was reasonably big for Exodus, there was no doubt who people had come to see tonight, and Kreator didn’t really respond with equivalent energy. The stage was confining, but not as much as it was for the other three bands, who lost half the stage to Kreator’s gear, and they all managed to reflect the crowds enthusiasm; the Germans didn’t. Their playing was excellent, their songs are excellent, but it was difficult to believe they were really enjoying playing them.

“ prime German thrash metal ”

Setlist: Violent Revolution / Hordes of Chaos (A Necrologue for the Elite) / Phobia / Terrible Certainty / Betrayer / Voices of The Dead / Enemy of God / Destroy What Destroys You / When The Sun Burns Red > Amok Run / Endless Pain / People of The Lie / Pleasure To Kill / Coma of Souls // Choir of the Damned / The Pestilence / Flag of Hate / Tormentor

Photo(s): Andy Lye

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2010, Gigs, Thrash Metal, Death Angel, Exodus, Kreator, Suicidal Angels