Testament live at Shepherds Bush Empire
Testament – Shepherds Bush Empire – 24 July 2009
Words by Rant Chick / Photos by Marcus Maschwitz
Cast your mind back to 1983: as you cough your way through the hairspray of the teased-haired, spandex-wearing, glitter-infused conglomeration of glam-metallers, you will stumble upon a band called Testament – born in America to the town of California. 27 years later the band exists as an attestation to longevity: testified by fans, both young and old, who congregated at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire to witness thrash metal at its very best. The all-consuming anticipation that permeates the air is finally ignited when the legends of thrash finally respond to the crowd’s calls and appear on stage to entertain and brutalise with riffs that are bigger and badder than ever. Chuck Billy, the mammoth vocalist with the mammoth voice, opens the set with The Preacher, taking the audience way back to Testament’s second album The New Order. The evening’s set list (The Preacher, The New Order, Over the Wall, Practice What You Preach, More Than Meets the Eye, The Persecuted Won’t Forget, Burnt Offerings, The Legacy, Into the Pit, Souls of Black, Disciples of the Watch Encore: DNR, 3 Days in Darkness and The Formation of Damnation) spans seven of the band’s ten albums, reflecting the contribution Testament has made to metal over that last two decades. Intellectually the band still has a great deal to offer, having lived through the political, personal and social upheavals that life has hurled its way since the band’s conception. Musically, the band is as tight as ever – guitarists Eric Peterson and Alex Skolnick shred through an unyielding set without losing any fingers, bassist Greg Christian rips up some juggernaut speed tempos and, surprisingly, Paul Bostaph manages to extricate his foot from the double bass drum pedal when the gig is over. Billy owns the stage with his grandiose stage personality and, with the help of his mic-stand, ads to the guitar mayhem with some air-guitaring that punctuates his relentless vocal aggression. Testament comes full circle by ending a raucous three-song encore with the title track from 2008′s The Formation of Damnation, and even after a mass of tireless head-banging, moshing and crowd-surfing the crowd is still able conjure up enough energy to belt out the battle cry of the final song: I will fight relentlessly/ I stand tall defiantly/ I see what you cannot see/ I invoke the beast in me/ I fear not the agony/ I breathe hope inside of thee/ I will kill the enemy/ I fulfill my destiny” – powerful words that exemplify the persistence of a band (and its fans) that stands in opposition to the world’s bullshit.
July 27th, 2009
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