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…
Scroll down to see Obituary, Exodus, Death Angel, Deafheaven, Gatecreeper, Dying Fetus, Cradle of Filth, Arch Enemy, Powerman 5000, Mayhem, Meshuggah, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Napalm Death, Machine Head, In Flames, Bullet For My Valentine, Trivium, Belphegor, and so many great support acts from over a dozen \m/etal shows!
04/27 at UC Theatre – Obituary, Nails, Terror, Spiritworld, Pest Control
Two days after Exodus and Death Angel crushed Berkeley, Obituary rolled in and pulverized it some more with their patented brand of Florida Death Metal. This tour was to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of Cause of Death, which is widely considered to be one of the most important death metal albums of all time. Their guitar tone is so recognizable that it takes only a note or two to know that Obituary is about to happen! Unlike Exodus though, Obituary did not perform the entire album front to back, instead playing seven of the nine tracks (out-of-order), leaving time for half-dozen other fan favorites. Setlist.
Exodus celebrated the 40th Anniversary of their classic thrash metal debut album Bonded By Blood by performing it from start to finish on the very day it was released (in 1985), which also would have been former lead singer (R.I.P.) Paul Baloff’s 65th birthday! Guitarist Gary Holt even led the sold-out crowd in a Happy Birthday sing-along to Paul. Longtime former member Rick Hunolt joined for three songs to make it a triple threat axe attack alongside Holt and Lee Altus. During the encore, original bassist Jeff Andrews appeared for a song from their 1982 demo cassette. Setlist.
04/17 at UC Theatre – Dying Fetus, Cradle of Filth, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ne Obliviscaris, Undeath, Vomit Forth, Corpse Pile
Scroll down to the 04/05 Machine Head entry and there is an observation about how the Bay Area gets its fair share of either the beginning or the ending of tours. It’s time to add another one to that list… Chaos & Carnage 2025!
UC Theatre bore witness to six straight hours of death metal from all over the globe, from Italy to Australia to England to United States, from the likes of co-headliners Dying Fetus and Cradle of Filth to Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ne Obliviscaris, Undeath, Vomit Forth, and Corpse Pile.
Corpse Pile (from Houston, TX) kicked off the 2025 edition of Chaos & Carnage at the severely early hour of 4:30pm. Despite 1,100 people eventually making it out to the show, they did unfortunately perform to a rather empty room.
Following them was Vomit Forth (from Connecticut). Although they are among the early bands in the overall lineup, they have had up some huge underground tours in the past couple of years, supporting some amazing names in modern death metal like Ingested, Sanguisugabogg, Kruelty, Cattle Decapitation, 200 Stab Wounds, Frozen Soul, and Gates to Hell. At this rate, they could very well be co-headlining Chaos & Carnage in 2026! Setlist.
The only logo on the Chaos & Carnage lineup poster that is completely illegible belongs to none other than Undeath (from Rochester, NY). Thankfully, their brand of ferocious death metal was not indecipherable and fit like a glove after the previous two bands of ferocious death metal. Setlist.
Ne Obliviscaris (from Melbourne, Australia) channeled their best Opeth by fitting only three songs in their 40-minute set. This was the only performance of the entire show with an almost equal amount of clean vocals in combination with death metal vocals, as well as feature a lot of the violin! Setlist.
Click on any photo below for a slideshow of full-size images of Corpse Pile, Vomit Forth, Undeath, and Ne Obliviscaris.
Cradle of Filth recently released a brand-new album The Screaming of the Valkyries and kicked off their set with a song from it, this being the debut performance of To Live Deliciously. Another new song punctuated the middle of the set, with most of the remainder having been released in the early 90’s and before 2000! Setlist.
During the 30-minute set change after Cradle of Filth, the sound team of Dying Fetus seemed to be having a great time at the expense of a roomful of battle-vested extreme metal fans by playing The Village People (YMCA), Wham (Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go), Bon Jovi (Livin’ On A Prayer), and other Top-40 hits of the 70s and 80s. Their lighting team joined in on the fun by emphasizing key points of each song… and then they shut it all down and Dying Fetus emerged and capped off the night with their blistering death metal. Setlist.
Click on any photo below for a slideshow of full-size images of Fleshgod Apocalypse, Cradle of Filth, and Dying Fetus.
What is it with the Swedes and their lights?! Nearly two weeks ago was a blinding performance from In Flames (see 04/05 below), the first of now three Swedish bands to grace us with their presence in the past half-month. Three nights later, Meshuggah (see 04/08 below) took it up 10 notches with their mesmerizing and really blinding assault! Not realizing that a sunglasses purchase was still needed, Arch Enemy’s light show definitely was a step up from In Flames, obviously not eclipsing Meshuggah (no one is!). In fact, word from a Spinning Platters insider at the venue is that there were more lighting trees still in the trailer because there was no more room on the stage!
The 90-minute set contained four songs from their just-released new album Blood Dynasty, and the rest of the set was a great mix between their classic early pre-2005 songs and material written after Alissa White-Gluz joined the band in 2014. She is a fantastic frontwoman, taking charge of a mostly testosterone-filled stage of Michael Amott, Sharlee D’Angelo, Daniel Erlandsson, and new guitar Joey Concepcion. Collectively, they kept the \m/etal and the mosh pit rolling all night and they all sounded great through the Regency Ballroom’s recently updated sound system. Setlist.
The Decibel Magazine Tour arrived in San Francisco Berkeley with Norwegian black metal godfathers Mayhem, Norway’s dungeon synth progenitor Mortiis, New York City cinematic death metal chaos wielders Imperial Triumphant and San Diego death rock night-bringers New Skeletal Faces.
The Swedes and their lights… A few nights prior, In Flames got the nod for “blinding everyone in the building“, but that was nothing compared to the 90-minute visually blinding assault of Meshuggah’s light show! Their additional use of lasers even puts Tool to shame… Setlist.
San Francisco gets its fair share of First Night of Tour as well as Last Night of Tour. Those are always fun. Either the show has not been seen yet or there’s a strong likelihood of seeing an end-of-tour prank. When the tour is for Oakland’s own Machine Head though… it’s always close to one of these bookends! Before the world shut down, in February 2020, Oakland was the penultimate show (Anaheim was actually last). December 2022 was Sacramento for the finale. January 2024 saw San Francisco first, and 15 months later, Oakland kicks it all off again!
This tour also started nearly a full month before their latest album is released, and so there was only two new songs performed. A few months prior to all of this, each of the opening bands contributed their voices to one of Machine Head’s new songs These Scars Won’t Define Us and a lyric video was released for it, as a promotional tool to hype the tour. Unfortunately, there was no guest collaborations from those support acts when that song was played live. The only guest that was on stage, near the end of the set to sing a verse of Davidian, was Chris Kontos, the drummer from their 1994 debut album Burn My Eyes. * In early 2020, on their Burn My Eyes 25th Anniversary tour, Chris traveled with the band as they performed the album in its entirety with 75% of the original guys who wrote it. All in all, it was a killer performance by Machine Head and the hometown was a great way to kick it all off. Setlist.
After Sylosis warmed up the early crowd for 20 minutes, August Burns Red kicked things off next for the still-arriving masses. Having last seen them do an explosive blinding 90-minute headliner in 2023 for their 20th anniversary, this set was too quick (and not as blinding)! Sadly, that’s what happens on support slots, and especially when the next two co-headliners each get a full 75-minutes.
Singer and guitarist Matthew K. Heafy had 20 extra minutes to burn and so he talked A LOT during set breaks. Always looking to pump themselves up with the crowd, the set did feel a bit too rehearsed, which was actually very similar to when Spinning Platter’s reviewed them at the Metal Tour of the Year (Megadeth, Lamb of God, Trivium, Hatebreed) nearly four years ago.
Matt mentioned to a smattering of boos that Portugal had the most insane crowds of their entire world tour so far. He repeated this again to try to elicit more boos because “San Francisco wants to be the best crowd of the tour, right?!” Was SF better than Portugal? Hmm… well, the Masonic was extremely filled with people, but it’s no secret that metal fans around the world are way crazier than here, no matter how full the pit might be. But was Trivium still good? Of course they were!
WHAT A \M/ETAL \M/ONTH OF SHOWS!
