Leg Two of Anthrax-Testament-Death Angel U.S. Tour Announced
Following what can only be described as the Rock’n’Roll comeback story of 2011, Anthrax will kick off 2012 with round two of a U.S. co-headline tour with fellow thrash titans, Testament. The dozen-plus dates that come on the heels of the bands’ five-week Fall trek that packed venues from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, will kick off in Las Vegas on Sunday, January 22 and will take in some fifteen cities over a three-week period (dates listed below). Anthrax will close all shows and Death Angel will again be main support on all dates.
Tickets go on sale this Friday, December 9 and Saturday, December 10 at 10AM local time. For all details or to purchase tickets, log onto http://anthrax.com – http://www.testamentlegions.com/ or http://deathangel.us/ Can’t wait until this weekend to grab tickets? Prior to the official on-sale dates in each city, Anthrax fans can head over to AnthraxArmy.com and Anthrax.com beginning today at 3:00PM ET, to purchase a special pre-sale ticket bundle featuring a Worship Music sticker, an official Anthrax Army sticker, and a limited edition collectible band-member fan laminate. These bundles are available for a limited time only. Additional details online.
“The first leg of the tour with Testament and Death Angel was an amazing way to end a great year for Anthrax,” said Anthrax’s Scott Ian, “and it went above and beyond my expectations! Sold out shows, raging crowds and EPIC war dances! So we figured what better way to start 2012 than to continue this thrash-fest into the new year!!! Thank you all for giving us this privilege to come and play for you. See you soon!”
The first leg of the Anthrax-Testament co-headline jaunt marked the first time the two bands had toured together in more than a decade, and proved to be a rousing success with reviews such as, “This line-up of thrash metal masters is what most metal heads’ wet dreams are made of.” Minneapolis’ City Pages summed the show up this way: “Metal…is alive and well and will continue to be as long as Anthrax has anything to say about it.”
Twenty-eleven proved to be a watershed year for Anthrax – Charlie Benante/drums, Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano/guitars, Frank Bello/bass, Joey Belladonna/vocals. On September 13, the band released its long-awaited Worship Music, Anthrax’s first new album in eight years and first studio album since 2003’s We’ve Come For You All. Worship Music features the return of “classic era” vocalist Belladonna making his first Anthrax album in twenty years. The album debuted at #12 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart, has received stellar reviews and been called “the metal album of the year” by numerous critics and music tastemakers, including VH-1/That Metal Show’s Eddie Trunk, and Alexander Milas, editor of the UK’s Metal Hammer. Worship Music has also landed on copious amounts of “year-end-bests” lists, and the editors of Loudwire named it their #1 Metal Album of the Year, with the track “The Devil You Know” claiming the #1 Metal Song of the Year honors.
The return of Belladonna and Anthrax’s remarkable renewal began in 2009 in a Cleveland hotel bar with Anthrax’s Benante and Ian, and Metallica’s Lars Ulrich when he first brought up the idea of The Big Four – Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax, the four bands that served as the original architects for the “thrash/speed-metal” scene,” yet had never shared the same stage before. The first of (so far) fourteen Big Four events took place on June 16, 2010, culminating in what was Anthrax’s New York homecoming concert – The Big Four at Yankee Stadium on September 14, 2011, the day after Worship Music hit stores. “We came into The Big Four as the underdog,” said Benante. “We were the band that had the most to prove, and we’ve worked really, really hard to do that.”
With more dates to be added, the confirmed itinerary is as follows:
JANUARY
22 House of Blues, Las Vegas, NV
23 House of Blues, Anaheim, CA
24 Marquee Theatre, Tempe, AZ
27 Egyptian Room @ Murat Center, Indianapolis, IN
28 Piere’s Entertainment Center, Fort Wayne, IN
29 Expo Five, Louisville, KY
30 The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC
FEBRUARY
2 Tabernacle, Atlanta, GA
3 Promowest Pavilion, Columbus, OH
6 Crocodile Rock, Allentown, PA
7 Rams Head Live!, Baltimore, MD
8 Best Buy Theatre, New York, NY
