(photos were not allowed this evening, so we've put together a collection of archive photos to go with the review)

With Slayer being out on their big farewell tour, we expected great things, and seeing the bands they’d brought along only helped solidify this expectation.
Obituary had failed at opening the show however, and now it was up to Anthrax to get the crowd going, before the main event of the evening. My hopes were higher for this particular show, but would they be able to bring us all out of the ditch we’d ended up in at this point of the evening?

“Copenhagen, Denmark! How the hell are you?!”
- Scott Ian (guitar)

Anthrax chose to open their show with playing Iron Maiden’s The Number Of the Beast over the p.a., and already at this point, I was feeling more secure about this whole endeavor. At the end of the song, the musicians of the band entered the stage, and when it was their time to take over, they opened with Pantera’s Cowboys From Hell - how’s that for setting the bar?!
Cowboys From Hell was only played in part though, as they let it unremarkably slide into Caught In A Mosh. This was quickly becoming a hit parade without equal, and it was exactly what the band kept aiming for, for the rest of their show. Aiming for, and hitting the bull’s eye, if I may say so!

Like Obituary, Anthrax only had a measly seven songs at their disposal to make an impact, but unlike the aforementioned death metal band, Anthrax was all about making a great delivery. As soon as they hit the stage, we could feel that the atmosphere had changed, and the air was almost filled with sparks of energy. Joey Belladonna hit the stage at a running pace, and damn near didn’t slow down for the rest of the evening - he’s never been my favourite vocalist, not even in this band, but he’s a born performer through and through, and that nobody can deny!
The rest of the band may have started out well, but they managed to raise the bar further during the show, filling on with more energy rather than running dry. Scott Ian was jumping when not running in circles around himself, and Frank Bello is simply a beast! Frankie Benante is mad behind the drums, while Jonathan Donais is the calm anchor of the band. Don’t be mistaken though, the boy can play, and place him in any other band, where the competition isn’t as hard as here, and he’d surely make a larger impact the wildness of his present colleagues allows for.

“Alright Copenhagen, are we alive?! Everybody sing to me, loud!”
- Joey Belladonna (vocals)

Belladonna was still the centre of attention though, and the main connecting part between band and audience. He didn’t mind taking a turn out on the speakers standing in the security pit to get close and personal, and had nothing at all against chatting the crowd up between songs or enticing them to sing along (as if they weren’t already). For Antisocial, he even grabbed a large video camera from a film guy in the pit, mounted it on his shoulder, and filmed the crowd while singing. Some acrobacy was needed to get all the equipment in place, but when it was, he seemed to manage just fine.
And of course the crowd loved it - how could they not? Again, the shift from the previous show and this was unmistakable. Also in the audience, the energy was peaking, with moshing and headbanging being the main ingredients of the day, but I even started seeing a few crowd surfers sailing by. And of course, there was the singing. Even though the band first requested it, with great response I might add, halfway into the set, with an “oh-oh” choir for Be All, End All, the crowd was already warming their throats up during those first Cowboys From Hell chords, and kept it going until the band ended the show, by playing the final riff passages of that same Pantera song as a prolonged outro for Indians.
After this, the band poured picks and drumsticks over the crowd, while AC/DC’s Long Live Rock N’ Roll played over the speakers - being cut very short though, probably due to the time limit for the band.

I am willing to admit that Anthrax was the band I was looking the most forward to seeing this evening, but that in no way guaranteed a successful show. They did play a successful show however, even shooting it way past my expectations, and I’ll be damned to say if they weren’t the best act out there this evening. Anthrax surely got some unexpectedly stiff competition from Slayer later on, but yeah, while they were impressive to say the least, I did have more fun together with Anthrax. This is how it’s supposed to be done!

Setlist:

The Number Of The Beast (Iron Maiden song)
Cowboys From Hell (Pantera cover, snippet)
Caught In A Mosh
Got the Time (Joe Jackson cover)
Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.)
Be All, End All
Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t
Antisocial (Trust cover)
Indians
Cowboys From Hell (Pantera cover, snippet)
Long Live Rock N’ Roll (AC/DC song)