Exodus, Death Angel, and Hirax: House of Blues - Anaheim, CA - 4/26/25
San Francisco Bay Area thrash metal legends Exodus announced two special shows in California. These two shows would be celebrating 40 years of their debut album Bonded by Blood which is without a doubt one of the greatest metal albums of all time. For this special occasion, the album would be performed in its entirety. Not only that, but these two shows would mark what would’ve been the 65th birthday of their original vocalist Paul Baloff who sadly passed away in 2002. Joining them on this tour are fellow Bay Area thrashers Death Angel and Hirax. Opening the show were San Diego thrashers Nukem. This thrashtastic show would take place at the House of Blues in Anaheim, California. SoCal was so ready for this historic show that it sold out a couple of months ahead of time.
Hirax have been around since the 80’s. On February 28, 2025, they released their sixth album Faster Than Death. This was their first album in 11 years. Hirax came out to a nicely packed venue and immediately started playing some thrash metal music. The audience wasted no time in moshing and shoving into each other. Hirax played blistering tracks like “Drill into the Brain” and “Black Smoke”. Plenty of times, even crowd surfers made an appearance making security up front work extra hard. The last song of their set was the fan-favorite “Bombs of Death” and drove the audience just as wild. Hirax are still going strong with new music and crazy shows, so if you see them coming near you, be sure to go see them.
Grammy-nominated Death Angel are another one of the best metal bands to come out of the Bay Area. Since being active in 1982, they have released nine albums with the latest being Humanicide in 2019. The venue was super packed by the time Death Angel came out on stage. The first song performed was “Evil Priest” off their debut album The Ultra-Violence. Once again, the audience quickly went into a frenzy as they started to mosh and shove into each other. Next up was another song from the debut album, the classic track “Voracious Souls”. The dual guitar work from Rob Cavestany and Ted Aguilar is a thing of beauty and would drive the mosh pits wild. Vocalist Mark Osegueda still sings to perfection and hits every note without missing a beat. More classic Death Angel songs were performed including “I Came for Blood”, “The Dream Calls for Blood”, and “Mistress of Pain”. At this point, there were crowd surfers everywhere and anyone who was near the barricade was surely getting pummeled one way or another. The last song on their set was “Thrown to the Wolves” and it was a fast one that let the audience continue being the wild bunch that they’d been all night. Death Angel finished up their set and made way for the headlining band of the night.
The metal community received a shocking announcement on January 5th, 2025, when Exodus announced that their vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza had been fired from the band and would be replaced by Rob Dukes who had previously sung for Exodus from 2005 to 2014. This show would mark the third show that Exodus would perform with Dukes since his return. The lights went out and the now fully packed venue cheered with excitement as a live concert speech by Baloff was played over the speakers. Once the speech ended, the band came out to begin playing their debut album. The first song played was the title track “Bonded by Blood” and, naturally, the audience went even more insane than before. Even from the start, wave after wave of crowd surfers made their way to the front and made security up front work for their pay. The next song performed was the next track from the album, “Exodus”. Between the scream from Dukes and the shredding solos from Lee Altus and Gary Holt, it has impossible not to sing along, scream, raise your horns, and bang your head. After a few more songs, they took a break from the debut album to play “Pleasures of the Flesh” and “Brain Dead”, both from their second album, Pleasures of the Flesh. After that, Dukes made note that, the day before, it was Paul Baloff’s birthday. To celebrate the occasion, he had the audience sing “Happy Birthday” to him. One special moment during the show was when Dukes announced that they just released a new single. The single was a Scorpions cover of “He’s a Woman - She’s a Man”. The song features Mark Osegueda on vocals. Since Osegueda is playing the same show, Exodus played the song and brought out Osegueda to sing the song with them. This would possibly mark the one and only time the song would be played as it was not played the night before and Death Angel is not on the current Exodus tour. At this point, there had been so many crowd surfers that even a security guard had to step away to catch his breath and was sweaty from catching people. The final song of the set was “Strike of the Beast”. Easily one of Exodus’ best songs. With a deadly combination of speed and thrash, the crowd kept moshing and crowd surfers just kept coming. Exodus finished their set strong, thanked the audience for coming out, then left the stage. The whole night was filled with heavy music, and it was a great night for metal. The regular Exodus tour is going on now, so if you see them coming near you, be sure to go see them!
