Sometimes it’s hard for me to suppress my headbanging roots. My friend Craig isn’t any help as every time a classic thrash band comes through town he inevitably buys two tickets, looks at me with his big brown eyes and says, “But dude…I don’t have anyone else to go with.” So there I am, rocking like it’s 1989.

The so-called “American Carnage Tour” (*sigh*) was supposed to come through town back in February, but was delayed due to Slayer’s Tom Araya having back surgery, giving me a stay of execution for around six months. But it wouldn’t be delayed forever – you can’t stop metal, you know – and Saturday night there I was, pushing my way down a smelly corridor, making my way to my seat in the balcony of the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in downtown St. Paul, about to settle in for nearly four hours of classic thrash. And yes, I said “seat”. I’m thirty-four years old, have two kids, and am about as interested in participating in a mosh pit as I am attending a Justin Bieber concert; which is to say not at all.

In all fairness to the genre and the bands involved, I do hold a soft spot in my heart for thrash metal, if only out of nostalgia. Plus, surviving a Slayer concert just seems like a “bucket list” activity, doesn’t it? I touched on the subject earlier in my Big Four of Thrash article, and after having experienced a taste of it in the safety of a movie theater, seeing it live was too much to resist.

As I took my seat in the dingy auditorium known mostly for boxing events and broken seats, the lights went down. I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and prepared myself…
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Travel back in time with me…

The year was 1990, and I was fourteen years old, living in a small town in Central Wisconsin. I had been learning how to play drums for two years and had just joined my first band. So in short: an adolescent boy and all that entails, mixed with middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin. Got all that? Elsewhere, Metallica had recently released their …And Justice for All album, along with their first ever video for MTV. Dave Mustaine’s Megadeth had just released their masterwork Rust in Peace, and – almost simultaneously – Anthrax put out the brilliant Persistence of Time and Slayer released their seminal Seasons in the Abyss.

You still following? Okay, let’s put all this together…

Impressionable-teen-wannabe-musician + the culmination of thrash metal. Yeah, my life was changed.

There’s something about the genre that speaks to my most primal and base instincts. Twenty years have passed, and I’m now an “adult”, father of two. Yet every time I hear Charlie Benante pound out the thunderous opening of “Time”, the fourteen year-old inside of me can’t help but raise the devil horns to the sky and whisper, “Aw, fuck yes!”

Metal is a curious genre, always lurking just below the thick crust of popular music and rarely ever poking through. In fact, the years of 1990 – 1993 are the closest it ever got to mass acceptance, what with Metallica’s “Black” album, Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction, and Anthrax’s Sound of White Noise. Each of those albums featured shorter, simpler songs, which seemed designed to appeal to a wider audience. But even then, it only lasted a short while. Megadeth and Anthrax wandered aimlessly for the next decade, while Metallica went on to greater fame and fortune through their newfound “metal-lite” formula, only recently remembering what it was that made them great. And, it seems, along with that revelation, also came the realization that, “Hey! People still love that music!” And it’s true: though never really seeing any success on the charts, each of these bands enjoys huge popularity throughout the world, selling out clubs, theaters, and even arenas wherever they go.

Thus: The Big Four of Thrash tour.

The story goes like this: Last year, Metallica was inducted into the Hall of Fame. For the celebration, they flew out all their friends who helped them get to where they are, including members of the other “Big Four” bands. Apparently, all the nostalgia got to Lars Ulrich (Metallica’s drummer), and he floated the idea of doing a full-blown tour with the Big Four. It took some doing, but nearly a year later, the idea finally came to fruition with some dates in Europe and Australia.

But what about the States, where this movement was born? Apparently, they’re still working on that. But, in the meantime, they found a way to show the Sofia, Bulgaria concert in movie theaters all around the country through Fathom Events. The first showing was on Tuesday, with an encore presentation on Thursday, which I was able to attend. The footage was (mostly) uncut, featuring – in order – Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer, and Metallica, with short behind-the-scenes footage in between. Let’s break it down…
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