To be absolutely honest, my main motivation for this concert was Shadows Fall. When they cancelled, I vividly thought to bail. After all, my knowledge of Testament material stops in the mid-90's. Then I thought "Fuck it, you already have the ticket; go and have fun on your long week-end!". And that's exactly what I did.
When I got to the venue, I noticed (to my surprise) people of all ages and dressing styles. I had already read that the show was packed and couldn't be more curious to see this peculiar audience in action. The line moves fast and at around 6:52 I find myself inside the venue. As They Burn were setting and after a while, they hit the first notes. When a band comes straight with a successful breakdown from the first riff, things are unlikely to go wrong. Those Parisian fellas delivered a half-hour set of modern metal. Some people were familiar with their music, whilst the (silent) majority remained apathetic as usual. The only (weakening?) downside of their act was the staged attempt of cool-looking-not-so-synchronized-jumping-and-headbanging.
The time for the long-awaited set of Dew-Scented had finally arrived. I've been meaning to catch them play for ages but didn't have the chance to. The german war machine set very high standards, as their set can be accurately described with a single word: fury. People knew their songs and seemed to have a pretty good time. Props to the vocalist too, for encouraging the audience to participate more with those cute attempts to speak in french (almost fluently!). They definitely won the impressions in the 45' they played -in my humble opinion they overshadowed the headliners- and left with a promise to return with a new tour later in the year.
When Testament stepped on stage, all hell broke loose. The energy of both the band and crowd was amazingly intense. Chuck Billy is one of the biggest personnas out there. He didn't rest for a minute while he displayed almost his full vocal range. The setlist was going back and forth to the main Testament discography ("Souls Of Black" being a profound absence), but without losing focus of the current release. Oldschool title tracks were accompanied by LOTS of singalongs and stagedives. The utter recognition goes to the coolest drummer ever, Gene Hoglan. That guy is a freaking chameleon; he perfectly nailed it as if it were the simplest thing to do. In the 90' of their performance, Testament delivered a non-stop set full of nerve better than kids half their age. To them, the finishing gig of the tour was positively a big party. The latest record, as presented by their set, shows a lot of potential, proving the resign to compromise the quality of their music-making. They renewed the appointment with the kids at Hellfest in the summer and headed to a glorious exit.
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