Formed in New York in the early 80’s, the band picked a name that they deemed ‘sufficiently evil’ sounding and immediately began to draw notoriety from its rowdy live performances.
After signing with heavy metal powerhouse Megaforce Records, things were looking good for the band however they struggled to a find a line-up that worked. With a debut album in the bag they eventually settled with Joey Belladonna as the frontman.
They began to release albums like ‘Spreading The Disease’ and ‘Among the Living’ which is widely considered the band’s breakthrough record and is often cited as a fan favorite. During this time they toured with big names such as Living Color and Metallica and were on the tour that saw the untimely demise of Metalica’s much beloved bassist Cliff Burton.
In the early 90’s the band embarked on an unlikely partnership that turned out to be one of their best moves. After collaborating successfully with Rap group Public Enemy on their track ‘Bring The Noise’, the group embarked on a US tour with the group and the meeting of Thrash and Hip Hop turned out be a successful pairing.
The band has continued to tour and release albums under a variety of line ups and have come to be respected and worshiped amongst metal fans. In 2010 the band headlined the UK’s Sonisphere Festival as part of the big four event and the reaction from hundreds of thousands of people was the ultimate sign of respect.
Anthrax has made quite a comeback in these last couple of years. In 2010 they re-enlisted lead singer, Joey Belladonna, who contributed vocals on Anthrax’s breakthrough album, Among the Living, and in 2011 they released their first album in eight years entitled, Worship Music, which shows the band revisiting their intense thrash metal style that made them so renowned. Regardless to say, Anthrax is back on top of their game and their live performance is their greatest testament to their adept skills in captivating the audience with their high speed thrash metal.
Guitarist, Scott Ian, is a driving force behind the band prowling up and down the stage and jumping all over the place, all while playing face melting guitar riffs in the heaviest tones. Lead singer, Joey Belladonna is also quite captivating belting out his lyrics while rocking back and forth, signaling the rock salute. He is also known for performing stage antics, which was displayed when I saw them play a show at the Gwinnett Arena and he came out on stage in an Indian head-dress to play the song “Indians”.
The stage set-up is similar to what you might expect at a metal show. Amps are piled on stage with loud distorted thrash metal blaring out of them, a massive drum-kit containing two bass drums is elevated on a large platform, which the drummer ferociously pounds away at, and massive displays of metal art are plastered behind the band. The audiences are usually quite rowdy, as would be expected. They fiercely head-bang, yell out all the lyrics to the songs word for word, and start up mosh pits. When at an Anthrax concert you can most likely expect to get caught in a mosh pit all while listening to the band perform the song, “Caught in a Mosh”, but you can also expect to see one face-melting performance that is ensured to rock your socks off.