Name: Testament

Genre: Heavy Metal

Formed: 1983

At the Webster Theatre: 05/23/2009

Origin: Oakland, California

Website: testamentlegions.com/

Myspace Page: /testamentlegions

Full Artist Profile

It was only a few short months ago that Bay Area thrash legends Testament made a tour stop at The Webster Theater in Hartford. Perhaps it was the close proximity of appearances or perhaps fans were more preoccupied with grilling and trips to the beach on this holiday weekend but regardless the reasoning, there were about 200 less people at this Testament appearance than the previous one. It also didn’t help that this show was Mass Concerts’ first attempt at the ‘double-dipping’ that was promised upon their buying of The Webster. This tour was scheduled for the very next night in Worcester, MA where they also own The Palladium, thus leeching off their own niche market. Nonetheless the smaller crowd proved to be just as raucous as the last time around.

The band themselves are road warriors, grizzled veterans of a roughly 25 year career that has taken them all over the world and back. There was no way they were going to let a smaller crowd phase them. In fact front man Chuck Billy went out of his way to acknowledge that the band had been on the very same stage ever so recently and emphatically thanked those who made the trip out for a second go-round. Testament has never really given a bad show in the roughly dozen or so times this writer has seen them live. This show was no different.

What was first noticeable and extremely refreshing was the bands set list had changed since their last trip to town. All too often a band will hit the road with set list in hand and fall into a comfort zone of playing the exact same set night in and night out for the duration of the tour. Thankfully Testament are smarter than that. Even if the majority of the songs themselves were repeats from their most recent past performance at least they had the forethought to juggle up the order and throw in a few surprises from their extensive discography. Speaking of discographies, the band covered the vast majority of their career again with this show, weaving together a compendium of ‘hits’ from the hallowed halls of thrash metal history. Although it would be impossible for the band to play every great song from their back catalogue (how “Face in the Sky” from the ‘Souls of Black’ album never found its way back into the set is beyond me…) it’s also extremely difficult for hardcore fans of the band to walk away disappointed or feel as if their money wasn’t well spent.

Main support on this leg of the tour belonged to Boston’s Unearth. For those not familiar, Unearth are one of a seemingly endless stream of bands that arose in the late 90’s combining new school hardcore with the aesthetics of melodic Swedish death metal. While the band certainly has enough melody and harmonies to hearken back to bands like In Flames and Dark Tranquility they continually muck it up with ill-timed breakdowns and a tough guy mentality. They certainly aren’t the worst band in the world, but there is really nothing to separate them from the pack either. (Although the band does get a special thumbs-up for using Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” as their intro music. Nicely done.)

All in all this show should first and foremost prove a warning to our friends at Mass Concerts. Very few metal bands can fill two clubs within hour’s drive of each other on back to back nights. Even fewer can do it after appearing in the same market only a few short months before. Only time will tell whether or not they heed this warning. What is for sure though is that Testament, after a long and distinguished career, can still kick some serious ass.