They do, but only just. They’re not really ready for a venue this size. The trio seems a little impressed by the crowd and isn’t oozing self confidence the way they do in small clubs.

Therefore they don’t manage to grab the crowd’s full attention. But the music itself goes down well and that’s hardly surprising. The best way to describe it is that it’s the perfect mix of Motorhead, AC/DC and Zeke.

As they play so much a lot of people know them and songs like “Big Toy” and their latest single “Resurrection” are being sung along by many of the beer drinking crowd. Still, their lack of experience with venues like this is obvious.

Hopefully they will get to play more gigs like this. I think they’d be able to blow the top off any arena if they’d get enough experience.

Anthrax
It’s been a while since Anthrax played in Europe. 4 years at least I think. There’s a new album coming out next year and then they will tour extensively as a headliner. Now they’re supporting Motorhead for this leg of the “Hammered” tour.

After the intro they start with “Among The Living” which everybody knows: as they don’t have a new album to promote the set is going to be a true ‘best of’; featuring songs like “A.I.R.”, “Efilnekufesin”, “Metal Thrashing Mad” and other crowd pleasers.

The problem is that most of these hits were originally sung by Joey Belladonna and the present singer John Bush has a completely different voice. Not a bad one I must add. Actually, John Bush has a far better voice than his predecessor, I think. Except that Bush’s register is a bit more limited.

This makes some songs sound a little weird, as the original vocals are quite high. But enough fan talk. Anthrax puts down a wonderful show. They play one song from the coming album We’ve Come For You All called “Superhero” which, although it doesn’t sound ‘very metal’, goes down well, I suppose.

Motörhead
Then it’s time for Motorhead. What’s there to say? They still kick ass all over the metal scene. From the very first song it’s a madhouse. On the first tones liters of beer fly through the air and everyone goes crazy.

The volume is surprisingly low. In the back of the hall you can even speak to each other without having to scream really, really loud. But that mistake is set straight within a couple of songs as maestro Lemmy himself tells the sound man to turn it up.

The sound isn’t very good though. Motorhead always has a light and bright sound and Lemmy’s bass never has a really low sound. But tonight it’s worse than ever. The sound is too shrill, too bright. As if there’s no sound below 400Hz. Even the bass drums are almost inaudible.

But the raw power the band radiates and the sheer volume make up for most of it. They play a couple of songs from the Hammered album, which is referred to as ‘Hammered Ali’ by guitarist Phil Campbell Apart from that it’s all the hits and a little more.

During “Bomber” the airplane shaped light rack above the stage comes to life and that looks awesome. “Ramones” is dedicated to Joey Ramone and “Ace Of Spades” is, as ever, the climax for most people. Then it’s over and time to listen to the tone in my ears. Auch!

(Review: Walter de Korver
Pics: Sebastien Sam)