The Anthrax thread

[RodrigoAltaf]

Here's my .02 about the 40th anniversary livestream -- it was marketed as a celebration of the band's FULL history. The imagery associated with promoting the event contained the cover images of the Bush-era catalog. AT THE VERY LEAST songs from the Bush era should have been played. They sure as hell played stuff from Turbin. Why not John Bush?

They played "Only" during the Big 4. So there's no excuses. The bottom line is, Anthrax MISREPRESENTED what they were doing. It was a great show, marred because they essentially lied about what they were doing.

I don't know what the deal is with them and Bush. They (Charlie, Scott, Frankie) LOVE the Bush era catalog, and frankly, that's the music they want to play. Joey says the right things, but obviously, the proof is in the pudding -- he doesn't sing the Bush stuff except for "Only" during that brief period. I thought that Bush and the Anthrax guys were all in a good place, relationship-wise. Maybe they still are. All I know is, while I didn't expect Bush to be there (although I was really hoping for it), I DID expect, based on what Anthrax marketed the show as, a representation of the Bush era catalog. And we got ZERO.

They won't be getting my money again for a while.

My wife and I have seen Anthrax many, many times. Always a good show. We stopped going to see them, however, because the setlist got stale. I think we saw the first leg of the For All Kings tour. But all the songs other than those on the new record were stuff we've heard many times. It just got stale.

I was just saying, prior to the Anthrax livestream, that we should probably go see them again, and about a quarter of the way through, was really encouraged by how well they were playing. At the end, after we realized they bamboozled us into thinking they'd celebrate the Bush era catalog, we completely reversed course.

What Anthrax did was a slap in the face to John Bush and a slap in the face to the fans. Hell, I even got banned from Anthrax's Facebook page by saying that they put on a wonderful show but at the same time, did the Bush era fans wrong and it was disrespectful to Bush. That got my comment deleted and me banned from their page. 

Alrighty then... lol.

Spot on! And based on the videos they did addressing the history of the band, I even expected Dan Spitz to be there for at least one song.

[TAC]

(dead on post)

Spot on! And based on the videos they did addressing the history of the band, I even expected Dan Spitz to be there for at least one song.

I agree Brian. It was kind of a rip job. I thought the setlist was excellent, but the lack of Bush Era stuff  is inexcusable. I think three tracks would've been just fine, and I too, expected John Bush to have made an appearance.

And Rodrigo, I definitely expected a Dan Spitz sighting, if even for just one song.


No surprise that Greg Walls wasn't there.

[Stadler]

Wow, no Greg Walls. That IS a slap in the face. 

[Setlist Scotty]

What Anthrax did was a slap in the face to John Bush and a slap in the face to the fans. Hell, I even got banned from Anthrax's Facebook page by saying that they put on a wonderful show but at the same time, did the Bush era fans wrong and it was disrespectful to Bush. That got my comment deleted and me banned from their page. 

I guess they showed you!!!! 

[RodrigoAltaf]

What Anthrax did was a slap in the face to John Bush and a slap in the face to the fans. Hell, I even got banned from Anthrax's Facebook page by saying that they put on a wonderful show but at the same time, did the Bush era fans wrong and it was disrespectful to Bush. That got my comment deleted and me banned from their page. 

I guess they showed you!!!! 

Yeah, way to win a fan's support, right?

[cfmoran13]

[And based on the videos they did addressing the history of the band, I even expected Dan Spitz to be there for at least one song.

For some reason, I didn't think Spitz lived in the US anymore.  I thought I remembered him moving to Holland or somewhere in that vicinity a number of years ago.

And, it definitely was a great setlist... that represented about 25 of their 40 years.

[WilliamMunny]

Here's my .02 about the 40th anniversary livestream -- it was marketed as a celebration of the band's FULL history. The imagery associated with promoting the event contained the cover images of the Bush-era catalog. AT THE VERY LEAST songs from the Bush era should have been played. They sure as hell played stuff from Turbin. Why not John Bush?

They played "Only" during the Big 4. So there's no excuses. The bottom line is, Anthrax MISREPRESENTED what they were doing. It was a great show, marred because they essentially lied about what they were doing.

I don't know what the deal is with them and Bush. They (Charlie, Scott, Frankie) LOVE the Bush era catalog, and frankly, that's the music they want to play. Joey says the right things, but obviously, the proof is in the pudding -- he doesn't sing the Bush stuff except for "Only" during that brief period. I thought that Bush and the Anthrax guys were all in a good place, relationship-wise. Maybe they still are. All I know is, while I didn't expect Bush to be there (although I was really hoping for it), I DID expect, based on what Anthrax marketed the show as, a representation of the Bush era catalog. And we got ZERO.

They won't be getting my money again for a while.

My wife and I have seen Anthrax many, many times. Always a good show. We stopped going to see them, however, because the setlist got stale. I think we saw the first leg of the For All Kings tour. But all the songs other than those on the new record were stuff we've heard many times. It just got stale.

I was just saying, prior to the Anthrax livestream, that we should probably go see them again, and about a quarter of the way through, was really encouraged by how well they were playing. At the end, after we realized they bamboozled us into thinking they'd celebrate the Bush era catalog, we completely reversed course.

What Anthrax did was a slap in the face to John Bush and a slap in the face to the fans. Hell, I even got banned from Anthrax's Facebook page by saying that they put on a wonderful show but at the same time, did the Bush era fans wrong and it was disrespectful to Bush. That got my comment deleted and me banned from their page. 

Alrighty then... lol.

Man, I could not agree more.

Having seen the band at least half a dozen times with Bush, I always appreciated the effort they made to include 5 or 6 'classics' into the set—certainly more than VH ever did with Sammy. And, to his credit, Bush killed that stuff (I always loved his take on 'Indians').

I get that it's a sticky situation, but for all the times Joey has said he could've sung 'White Noise,' they certainly don't seem to want to give him a chance to prove it. Joey's voice is still sounding great. Honestly, given his age, I kinda can't believe how good he sounds on 'For All Kings,' and for that reason, I'd love to hear his take on a song like 'Black Lodge' or 'Inside Out.'

For whatever the reason, the band has closed the door on that era, and for that reason, they've lost my interest as a fan.

[DoctorAction]

That is quite poor. Esp the Facebook treatment. I love the Bush era. I wonder why they didn't include anything? Maybe Joey doesn't like the idea? Maybe they look on it as their "less successful" phase...

I didn't shell out for it. But had they included Bush and Spitz and advertised that I definitely would have.

[Grappler]

The Worship Music episode is now online.

They completely skipped the 2005-2010 years.  No mention of the classic lineup reunion that caused John Bush to leave.  No mention of Dan Nelson.  They can spend 10 minutes raving about working with John Carpenter on one movie soundtrack, but can't expand on five years of the band where things were really crazy and volatile and providing an and explanation from them about certain decisions. 

Though I guess "firing John and bringing Joey back because promoters offered us too much money" is as simple as it gets.  Again, probably just tip-toeing around Joey and not bringing up bad times.

[cfmoran13]

It's about time they put up the next episode!  It's been almost 2 weeks since the last one.  Might've even been 2 weeks.  Haven't gotten to watch the episode yet.  But, that's disappointing to hear...  Totally omitting 1/2 of one of your 4 decades seems kinda silly.

[Setlist Scotty]

Definitely disappointing. There should have been a full episode just discussing 2004-2011 with all the turbulence.

What I dislike the most is one of Scott's statements at the end of the episode where he says:

"I can say with the guys who are in Anthrax - me and Joey and Charlie, Frankie, John Bush... like all these diff.... Danny Lilker, Spitz – all these different people you've seen in all these weeks and weeks of documentary series - there's no bad blood, man. There's no bad blood at all. Rob, Paul Crook, y'know - if I missed anyone, I'm sorry."

Oh yeah, you unintentionally missed somebody. How convenient. And I'm sure there's no bad blood with said missed individual at all, which is why you glossed over his history with the band in the first place. 

And right there, he loses loses credibility. So much for being a completely honest documentary...

Yeah, maybe legally they couldn't touch on the Dan Nelson thing at all, but not a peep was mentioned about Frankie leaving for a bit, nor with the fiasco of who their vocalist would be, even if Dan Nelson wasn't brought up. At the very least, the statement I quoted above shouldn't have been included because it clearly is a load of crap.

I hope one day there will be an UNauthorized biography on the band produced, because you'll get a far more accurate story about what happened during 2004-2011. Really disappointed in them.

[DoctorAction]

Ugh. Really feels so insincere not to mention it. As a fan who was hanging on every bit of news over those years, looking forward to new stuff, hearing different things every few months...  Bullshit by omission. I'm not watching any more of these

[jammindude]

Seriously. I was waiting for this whole thing to be over, and then IF I heard it had delivered on its promise, I was going to do a binge watch marathon over a weekend at some point. Now…I don’t even care.

[Grappler]

Seriously. I was waiting for this whole thing to be over, and then IF I heard it had delivered on its promise, I was going to do a binge watch marathon over a weekend at some point. Now…I don’t even care.

Each episode has been really good - I'd say that you are missing out, even if the band decided to skip over five years that they didn't want to draw attention to. 

[ProfessorPeart]

So, I expected nothing about Dan considering they don't talk about him at all after the lawsuit. I also didn't expect John or Danny to show up for the live thing. Pretty sure John has stated that he is done fronting them. It's Joey's gig.

Doing some googling and my guess is that there is an NDA or something regarding Dan and the lawsuit. This tidbit seems to lean into that thought:

Bassist Frank Bello emerged from a closed-door court conference yesterday muttering, “I’ve got to put a Band-Aid on my tongue from biting it so much.”

Ex-lead singer Dan Nelson filed a $2.65 million defamation suit last year against Bello, drummer Charlie Benante and guitarist Scott Ian over his abrupt departure from the band on the eve of a planned European tour in 2009.

Lawyers for both sides said the case was settled confidentially yesterday in Manhattan federal court.

As for Worship Music, love the album and love the love they gave Joey. In The End is one of the best songs they've ever written. Joey showed them that they probably never needed to let him go, they just needed to give him a shot.

[jammindude]

But this talk of “honesty” was bull puckey.

Honest would have been to AT LEAST say, “Look folks, for legal reasons, there’s a few things we have to skip over. It’s not our fault, and we’re really sorry.”

That would have been disappointing…but honest. What we got? Wasn’t.

[TAC]

Seriously. I was waiting for this whole thing to be over, and then IF I heard it had delivered on its promise, I was going to do a binge watch marathon over a weekend at some point. Now…I don’t even care.

Each episode has been really good - I'd say that you are missing out, even if the band decided to skip over five years that they didn't want to draw attention to.

Yes, definitely worth watching.




Personally, I don't care how or even if they covered Dan Nelson's involvement. I had totally forgotten about him before he was brought up in this thread. But to not have any John Era material in the performance was disgraceful.

[TAC]

New episode! Worship Music!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbxWU_8JG_I

[ProfessorPeart]

Final episode went up today. It's just over 40 minutes. Biggest takeaway from me was the sheer love and respect they showed Joey. So happy to see him get the credit he deserves.

I also took delivery on a 45rpm mastered double vinyl of Worship Music. Very happy to get my hands on that.

[DoctorAction]

Got over my annoyance about Bush/Nelson omissions and watched the last one. Really good. Great band. One of the all time greatest.

[TAC]

I saw that they posted the new video. I didn't really have 40 free minutes to sit and watch it. I will hopefully today.

Biggest takeaway from me was the sheer love and respect they showed Joey. So happy to see him get the credit he deserves.

I have no doubt that they are being genuine, but the cynic in me (and I'm not really a cynical person) is that they KNOW Joey is their ticket for work.

[Setlist Scotty]

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/ex-anthrax-singer-neil-turbin-says-bands-recent-40th-anniversary-documentary-didnt-represent-him-in-the-best-light/

Things to make you say hmmmm.....

Gives the impression that maybe there's legitimacy to what Greg Walls was saying in that one video, although he still came off looking like an idiot. Makes me wonder how much creative editing was done to portray a certain story for that whole series of videos. Still haven't bothered watching that final episode because of how 2004-2011 was completely skipped over.

[TAC]

The last episode was definitely worth watching.

[cfmoran13]

Makes me wonder how much creative editing was done to portray a certain story for that whole series of videos.

There's always gonna be editing to guide the narrative a particular way.  As for them only using a fraction of his stories... It WAS Anthrax's 40th anniversary, not Neil Turbin's.  What did he expect?!?  I love the band.  But, just from what I've heard other people say about interactions with him, I can see Scott being a douche (at least from time to time).  I'm sure there's at least a little truth in what Neil's saying.  There's his side, their side and the truth somewhere in the middle.  Hell, there could even be some credence to what that Greg guy has said.  We'll never know for sure.  You just gotta decide who you're gonna believe.

[ProfessorPeart]

I somehow missed this entirely, but next Friday they are releasing the livestream show on CD/Blu-ray.

https://www.amazon.com/XL-Anthrax/dp/B09YVHT9X6/

I know a bunch of you don't care or whatever due to the doc, but I just put my order in.

[TAC]

I somehow missed this entirely, but next Friday they are releasing the livestream show on CD/Blu-ray.

https://www.amazon.com/XL-Anthrax/dp/B09YVHT9X6/

I know a bunch of you don't care or whatever due to the doc, but I just put my order in.

I'm listening to this on Spotify right now. I'm not likely to watch the video, and not sure I want to spend $25 on this. I love Anthrax but I'd be more likely to just listen to their albums over this, though this is a great playlist by itself. The production seems to lack a bit of punch, and I'm not sure I would revisit this much.

I don't know, maybe something extra for Christmas, but I don't have anything in my Amazon account right now, and I'm not laying out cash.



How about a new fucking album instead?

[DoctorAction]

I somehow missed this entirely, but next Friday they are releasing the livestream show on CD/Blu-ray.

https://www.amazon.com/XL-Anthrax/dp/B09YVHT9X6/

I know a bunch of you don't care or whatever due to the doc, but I just put my order in.

How about a new fucking album instead?

Big fat meh on this release. Yes please to a new album. Other than a vague interest in what a band sounds like live, I never listen to live recordings.

[Zantera]

Been going through their discography over the last few months and was unfamiliar with them before that (aside from their name ofc). Guess I should have posted thoughts on each album as I went through them (though I could write some post once I finish) but I'm just listening to Worship Music for the first time and it's surprisingly great! Crawl is a really clear standout after 1 listen!

[Kwyjibo]

Worship Music has some killer tracks, top 5 Anthrax record, maybe even top 3. And the next one, For All Kings is just as good imo.

[TAC]

Worship Music has some killer tracks, top 5 Anthrax record, maybe even top 3. And the next one, For All Kings is just as good imo.

Yes! Both of the Reunion albums are amazing! So frustrating that's all they've done.

[Zantera]

I noticed the Belladonna vs Bush debate is actually a lot bigger than I expected. I would say Bush is a great singer and I like his first and last album(s) with the band but Stomp and Volume 8 were definitely the roughest patch of the discography to get through IMO. I would say even stretching slightly into We've Come For You All (although I do think it's a bit better), the creativity just felt a bit lacking and the band felt a bit ran into the ground. Worship Music comes in like a really nice shot of energy into a band where I thought I wouldn't have much left to cheer for. I am intrigued to check out For All Kings as well!

Since I missed the boat on doing a post here every week for each album as I go through them (which I'm currently doing with Megadeth in their thread here) I can post my thoughts at the end since I'm so close. Only one more studio album left after this one.

[TAC]

I noticed the Belladonna vs Bush debate is actually a lot bigger than I expected. I would say Bush is a great singer and I like his first and last album(s) with the band but Stomp and Volume 8 were definitely the roughest patch of the discography to get through IMO. I would say even stretching slightly into We've Come For You All (although I do think it's a bit better), the creativity just felt a bit lacking and the band felt a bit ran into the ground.

I'm not sure how much of a debate there is. I think even the most ardent Bush supporters (of which I am one) recognizes classic Anthrax is with Joey.

They switched from Joey to John because Charlie and Scott wanted to take the band to a darker vibe, and well, Joey was not the voice for that sort of thing. While guitarist Dan Spitz hung on through Sound Of White Noise, they were essentially a four piece after that, there were only so many places a darker Anthrax could go.
Personally, Stomp 42 is my favorite Anthrax album period. Volume 8 is OK, and has aged pretty well, but I just do not connect with any song on We've Come For You All.

[Kwyjibo]

Classic Anthrax is with Joey Belladonna, but at times I wished he would have more grit in his voice. Sometimes it's almost like a hair-metal-singer in a thrash-metal-band. The more surprised I was with his singing on the reunion records. His voice has matured, there's a rough edge to it, that really its the music.

John Bush is simply awesome. I'm with Tim in that Stomp 442 is the best Bush-era record and maybe even the best Anthrax record. But unlike him I like WYCYA and I'm not so keen on Volume 8. Some good songs but some serious clunkers too, very mixed bag for me.

@Zantera: I would like to read your thoughts on those Anthrax records. It's always fun and interesting to hear others express their feelings/experiences for music that I like.

[DoctorAction]

Sound Of White Noise is another Thrax record with John I love.  Love the Bush era except WCFYA, tbh.

I was a bit fed up they got Joey back rather than John, but the last 2 records were good and very well received so I think they made the right choice as far as it being a popular one is concerned. Joey's voice has changed quite a bit and lacks lacks energy or something these days but he's a lot older so totally expected. John sounds immensely fresh and engaging on that last Saint album. Would have loved to have had that on a new Thrax record but that ship has sailed.

[Kwyjibo]

Sounds Of White Noise did nothing for me. I know I'm probably alone in this, but apart from the first two songs it sounds tired and uninspired although Bush is singing his heart out. Stomp 442 was a welcome change of pace, maybe that's why I like that record so much. There's so much raw power and energy that the other Bush records are missing.