Alan Ralph – Spinning Platters

Show Review: Highlights of Aftershock 2025!

Review by:
Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro and Emily Anderson @emilyphotoadventure

Photos by:
Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro unless otherwise stated

Nearly one year ago, at the very end of Spinning Platters’ Aftershock 2024 review, this question was raised: “West Coast’s Biggest Rock Festival had such a stellar lineup this year, HOW are they possibly going to outdo themselves in 2025?!?!”

If one hundred people were asked if 2025 was better than 2024, there would undoubtedly be one hundred different answers and opinions. Aftershock 2024 was so exceptionally good and a heavy metal fan’s wet dream – Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Slayer, Pantera, Slipknot, Mastodon, Anthrax, Clutch, Ministry, Body Count and more! Fans of other genres of rock, punk, and loud music were still out in force, as Aftershock 2024 set an attendance record of 40,000 people per day, but may have felt neglected by the sheer amount of metal that closed every night of the festival.

For the 13th annual Aftershock in 2025, promoter Danny Wimmer Presents (DWP) altered the overall lineup to cater to the rest of those fans while still appealing to the heavy metal fans, by combining every Warped Tour, Ozzfest and Rockstar Mayhem Festival lineup, put it all in a blender, and poured it in a tall glass of Discovery Park for four days of the best rock, alt-rock, metal, 2000’s nu-metal, hardcore, and pop-punk bands, all in one place at one time in the outskirts of downtown Sacramento!

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Show Review: Mac Sabbath prevails in a post-Ozzy world

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro

Spinning Platters has had the pleasure of seeing Mac Sabbath seven times since 2016 yet it’s hard to believe that there’s only one other written review here on the inventors and self-appointed kings of Drive Thru Metal! This latest appearance at Great American Music Hall was part of a short West Coast tour called ‘This One Goes To 11‘.

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Show Review: 15 years of The Sword’s Warp Riders at GAMH

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro

In October 2022, the singer of The Sword announced the band was splitting up after 19 years. 21 months later… they’re back! It’s hard to say whether announcements like this helps or hurts a band, but the Great American Music Hall was sold out for weeks after the tickets went on sale for the 15th anniversary tour for their concept album Warp Riders. Spinning Platter’s enjoyed a pre-show meal at the legendary Tommy’s Joynt with guitarist Kyle Shutt and a few from the other bands and crew and was informed that a great many other shows on this tour have also been sold out well in advance. The moral of the story perhaps is to break up and get back together… it may help ticket sales!

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Punk Rock show reviews: Summer Circus of Discontent

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro

Back in the day, Warped Tour was the travelling festival of the summer. It’s back after a six-year absence, but as a destination festival, with one of its three locations being in Southern California.

Historically, the Bay Area always reaps the rewards of destination festivals like Coachella where bands will book other nearby shows or West Coast tours outside of the festival’s radius clause— so much so that Spinning Platters esteemed Editor even coined the phrase Fauxchella (and owns that domain name!) — and each year keeps track of Coachella bands that make their way up here.

So now, one of the advantages of Warped Tour bringing nearly 100 punk rock bands to Long Beach is that some of them will book in the Bay Area… and in the span of four nights following Warped Tour Long Beach, five of the travelling festival veterans and one LBC newbie made the journey up here.

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Show Review: the MFkn’ O.G. Original Gangsta ICE-T at GAMH!

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro

WHAT!? There’s no way that legendary O.G. Original Gangster rapper Ice-T (and heavy metal singer… and movie star…. and longtime Law and Order: SVU television actor) would be performing at the 470-capacity Great American Music Hall?! Is this for real? Ticket purchased immediately! Yes indeed, on Friday June 27, the I the C the E the T himself rolled into “Frisco” (his words) with his O.G. DJ Evil E and performed a ninety-minute set including shout-outs, NSFW jokes, and he even showed off a few of his special Bay Area friends.

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Show Review: Bayside celebrates their 25 years at August Hall!

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro

25 years ago, Bayside did not have to look very far for the inspiration in choosing their band name. They hail from Bayside, Queens (New York)! 25 years later, they are still actively writing, recording, and touring the world. On this The Errors tour, Bayside put together two setlists containing 44 songs spanning their nine albums and have been performing two nights of shows in every city, including a pair at August Hall.

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April \m/etal show photos + reviews: Obituary, Exodus, Death Angel, and more!

Photo Galleries and Show Reviews by: Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro

Spinning Platters attended, photographed, and reviewed (not all) a dozen \m/etal shows in April! Beginning the last weekend of March and throughout April, San Francisco (and Spinning Platters!) had become very \m/etal! Just look at the list of 60+ band names on the left column (on mobile, look near the bottom of the page), which does not happen very often around here anymore…

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Show Review: Max Cavalera’s Schizophrenia

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro

Max Cavalera tours a lot. Max and his brother Igor G. are best known for starting the band Sepultura in the early 1980’s, and since leaving that behind nearly 30 years ago, he has Soulfly, Nailbomb, Go Ahead and Die, and Cavalera Conspiracy keeping him and the Cavalera family very busy. They have plenty of good reasons to perform for their fans as much as they do, and that is because there is so much music to play! In fact, alongside Max on this particular excursion, both in the band and crew, is drummer/brother Igor G., guitar/son Igor A., manager/wife Gloria, and merchandise/son Richie.

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Show Review: GWAR at The Regency Ballroom, 10/20/2024

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro

As with every four-year election cycle, this 2024 United States presidential election season has been equally as boring as it is annoying, with the 24/7 news coverage and the debates and the spam texts and emails and the constant ads on the social feeds as well as in the physical mailbox.

Thankfully, the greatest live band in the universe, Antarctica’s very own GWAR, has once again stepped up to help out the American public… by executing all of the presidential candidates, present and past.

Spinning Platters is never one to avoid a good ole bloody mess, and with the expensive camera equipment properly covered, GWAR marched onto the stage and wasted no time in chopping off heads, hands, arms, and anything else available to spew their fluids onto all of those awaiting their bloody destiny.

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Show Review: The. Best. Aftershock. Ever.

Review and All Photos by: Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro

For decades, Europe has led the way in the heavy metal and loud rock music festival space. Monsters of Rock (the originator, which started in 1980!), Wacken Open Air, Dynamo Open Air, Hellfest, Graspop, Copenhell, Rock am Ring, Rock im Park, Summer Breeze, Sweden Rock Fest and Download have always dominated the landscape with their amazing lineups year after year.

United States was never close in offering an equivalent heavy metal experience. Sure, there was Ozzfest and Mayhem Festival, but those have been gone since 2017 and 2015 and Americans have always leaned more towards indie rock music festivals like Lollapalooza, Coachella, Bonaroo, and Outside Lands anyway.

For the last twelve or so years, Danny Wimmer Presents (DWP) has been chipping away at the supremacy of the European heavy metal festivals, with Welcome To Rockville, Louder Than Life, Sonic Temple, Inkcarceration, Rock on the Range, Rocklahoma, Carolina Rebellion, and Northern California’s very own Aftershock Festival. With the best lineup it has ever had, West Coast’s Biggest Rock Festival definitely lived up to its name in 2024!

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