It was a classic warm Saturday evening and there was absolutely nothing that could prevent me see my favorite Trash Metal act TESTAMENT wrecking Gagarin's stage with their monstrous riffing! The support act, the mighty US Grindcore act DYING FETUS was one more reason that made me be more than impatient for the specific day. So, the time has come and me and some friends head down for the club that hosted the event...

Due to a series of unfortunate events, one of them being the fact that we decided to go there by car and the parking spots are almost impossible to find, I only managed to enter the club while DYING FETUS were playing the last song of their set (Praise The Lord). Fuck! And I really wanted to see these guys live since they are one of my top Grindcore acts and their latest album War Of Attrition was surely a more than good addition to my CD collection. The bad thing was that many people were outside the club waiting for TESTAMENT to hit the stage, since most of the crowd was a pure Thrash Metal audience and a few people were there for the Maryland based extreme metallers. Anyway, the band's setlist was as
follows:

01. Schematics
02. In Times Of War
03. Homicidal Retribution
03. We Are Your Enemy
04. Streaks Of Blood
05. Born In Sodom
06. Kill Your Mother_Rape Your Dog
07. Bringing Back The Glory (NEXT STEP UP Cover)
07. Unadulterated Hatred
08. Pissing In The Mainstream
09. Blunt Force Trauma
10. Killing On Adrenaline
11. Grotesque Impalement
12. Insidious Repression
13. Raped On The Altar
14. Praise The Lord

When I got into the club I really couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was fucking packed with thrashers waiting for the California Thrash Metal titans to set the stage on fire! To tell you the truth, I heard some not really good stuff about the pre-sale status in Thessaloniki and I was almost sure that it would be something like the band's last Greek show at Rodon Club. But that was just a bad thought when I saw the hundreds of metalheads screaming the band's name causing an earthquake! So, let's not waste time...

It was 21:50 when Chuck Billy, Eric Peterson, Alex Skolnick, Greg Christian and Paul Bostaph got on stage waving at us and making us realize that they were there to deliver a hell of a nice show. The first notes of Over The Wall were coming out of the speakers and the Thrash Metal delirium had just begun! We didn't even had time to take a breath and TESTAMENT hit us again with Into The Pit. Yeah, my neck still hurts...

The band had a really nice sound in general, with the rhythm section (Christian & Bostaph) sounding like a ten ton hammer. Chuck Billy's microphone could be a bit higher, since his vocals were 'lost' sometimes, but that can't really be mentioned as a pretty bad thing, since everything was so dreamy about that show.

The setlist was really nice offering some classic tunes like Practice What You Preach (one of the fucking best riffs ever!), Souls Of Black, The New Order and many more, as well as songs from the band's latest masterpiece The Formation Of Damnation. The band proved that it is one of the greatest and most influential Thrash Metal acts ever with ease, making us stare the stage like there was a little time warp that led us straight to the 80's. The band preformed their old school songs, as well as their latest more brutal 'melodies' with the same passion and Chuck Billy was in constant communication with the audience, proving that some people still are the great guys they were in the past. The crowd was also more than passionate and went frenzy many times singing, headbanging and stagediving all the time! Just take a look at the setlist and imagine what you would do if you were there (or what you did if you attended the show):

01. Over The Wall
02. Into The Pit
03. Apocalyptic City
04. Practice What You Preach
05. The New Order
06. Electric Crown
07. More Than Meets The Eye
08. Low
09. Trail Of Tears
10. Henchmen Ride
11. Souls Of Black
12. The Preacher
13. D.N.R. (Do Not Resuscitate)
14. Three Days In Darkness
15. Alone In The Dark
16. Disciples Of The Watch

And it was the end of time, the end of reality... TESTAMENT ended their set and thanked us for the great night, but I was still there, staring at the stage. I just couldn't believe what I just had lived! Such bands are made to be great and they prove it with every single chance. That night, they grabbed their chance for one more time showing their class on stage with a monstrous show! Each one of them was incredible with Chuck being a king on stage as always, Alex taming his guitar, Eric being the definite riff machine, Greg delivering a hell of a nice show and Paul being the war machine we all know! Congratulations guys and be sure to make less to visit us again. We can't wait so many years for one more TESTAMENT show.

(photos by Yiannis Z)

TESTAMENT