Exodus celebrates “40 years of blood” in Teatro Flores!

October 12th, Teatro Flores Argentina

The San Francisco Bay Area was the region where thrash metal first began to expand globally. Bands like Metallica, Anthrax, Exodus, and Slayer were technically neighbors. Most of them were childhood friends. And their careers in Thrash Metal began with a notable debut album, one of which was Exodus’ “Bonded by Blood”, released in 1985. It means that this year it turns 40 years old, and the band decided to travel around the world playing the album in its entirety. And, of course, to make the fans say “welcome back” to the singer Rob Dukes, who played with the band in the late 2000s until the return of Zetro, back in 2014.

The South American leg of the “40 Years of Blood” tour would take place in October, and Buenos Aires had a marked date on the 12th day in Teatro Flores, located in Floresta town.
In this leg of the tour, bassist Jack Gibson was replaced by Heathen’s Kragen Lum (who previously replaced Gary Holt years before when he was touring with Slayer) due to a family emergency.

The first band to get onstage was Lazaro, a new Argentine Thrash Metal band, formed by the legendary Jorge Moreno just months after the split of Serpentor. This new band really carried the Serpentor style; Jorge’s guitar riffs have an unmistakable personality. 
That particular gig was important for the band, because they released the first copies of their debut album and were selling it there. 
They did an amazing job being the opening act, and they sounded pretty strong. It’s good to see that Jorge just decided not to stop making what he does best: composing killer riffs.

The second band was Tungsteno, a big name in the underground Metal scene; most of the people in the crowd knew their songs, sang the lyrics, or opened up mosh pits.
Playing tunes like “Speed Metal”, “Te-Thrash”, “Régimen de Violencia” or “Escuadrón del Thrash” (in which Exodus is named in the lyrics), the local band gave an outstanding performance. The whole place didn’t look like there was a headliner band after them, because the crowd got very energetic and sweaty during their performance.

The time had come; the Bay Area guys were just on the other side of the curtain. At 21.25, the lights went off, and a tape started sounding in the background; it was Paul Baloff, the late singer of the band, recorded in one of the earliest Exodus shows, speaking to the crowd, and it felt like he was speaking to all of us. Paul recorded “Bonded by Blood,” and this tour honored his memory.
After that, the curtains opened and the band started their set with “Bonded by Blood”, making everyone in the crowd go insane. That song was followed by “Exodus” and “And Then There Were None”, in the same order as it is on the album. The back of the stage had a huge curtain with the cover art of the album, and at the sides, there were 2 screens with the same album but with the design adapted to the Argentine flag.
Continuing the “Bonded…” set, the following songs were “A Lesson in Violence”, “Metal Command”, and “Deathamphetamine”, to recall the Dukes era of the band.
With “Blacklist,” the whole venue seemed to be shaken, as everyone was jumping, and the same energy was maintained on “Fabulous Disaster”, one of the jewels in the setlist.
With Gary playing the clean intro as the crowd sang it with him, the band resumed “Bonded…” with “No Love”; and after saying some words in honor of Baloff, Rob introduced us to “Paul’s favorite song from the album”: “Deliver Us to Evil”. Leaving the path clean for the next song, “Piranha”.
Of course, there was time for hits from other albums, like “Brain Dead”, “Impaler”, and, after the encore (where the crowd sang “Olé Olé” on loud for almost 5 uninterrupted minutes as the band stood on the stage, just smiling), “The Toxic Waltz” came to make all heads bang. It was hilarious that, before playing that song, they played the “Raining Blood” (by Slayer) and “Motorbreath” (by Metallica) intro, and then stopped it when the crowd just started getting in tune with it.
The end of the show came with “Strike of the Beast”, where Rob made all of us open a big pit to make a wall of death at the bridge of the song. It was incredibly violent, but all you could see was people enjoying it. I was there too, and yeah, it hurt a lot. But I’d do it a million more times, dragged by the adrenaline that Exodus gave to all of us in that spectacular performance.

Photos by Eliana Fernandez

Review by Agustin Lopez

Produced by Icarus Music & Anubis Music Shows

Press Marcela Scorca