Live review: Exodus, Lost Society at Melkweg, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 25-3-2016

This is the day the old school and new school thrash metal fans collided! March 25th is the battlefield for 2 of the biggest bands in their respective genre. Both playing furious, blistering fast thrash metal. Lost Society is a fairly new band to the scene but has put out 3 albums in the last four years and they do not seem to slow down at some point.

Exodus is one of the founding fathers of the genre. A really established name in the history book of thrash metal. They are returning to Amsterdam with a really energetic Steve “Zetro” Souza. Though not my favorite Exodus vocalist he put on a great show with great energy and he knew how to get the crowd moving.

Starting to talk about the beginning of the evening. The anticipation was enormous for me personally. Lost Society has been one of my favorite bands ever since they competed in a talent show in their home country Finland. I know every single song these guys ever put out. This particular night they were here presenting their 3rd album called Braindead which is arguably their best effort to date. I would recommend this album for every metal fan out there, not just thrash metal.

Performing 4 songs of the new album it didn’t seem they could get the old school fans along. My friend and myself were constantly in the pit shouting the words of all songs toward any of the band members and we regularly got looks from Samy (their vocalist/guitarist) like, hey! You know the lyrics! That’s awesome. You could really see the whole band appreciated to be there on the stage opening for Exodus while leaving their own mark on the city of Amsterdam. Don’t even get me started about HOW they played the songs. I have heard Lost Society’s records over and over and especially with the last album I was thinking, wow. How are they going to pull this off live? Well, I can tell you how they did that. Insanely perfect, hitting every note in every solo while moving like braindead, energetic guys. The only thing that bothered the hell out of me were the old guys in the back of the room. The “elite” thrash metal league. They were definitely there to only see Exodus play and didn’t seem to bother about Lost Society. That’s just so wrong. Lost Society are keeping thrash metal alive along with some other great bands like Evile and Dust Bolt. Neglecting them because it’s not “okay” to like new school thrash metal bands seems kind of immature.

Now for Exodus! Playing a great show as always. Exodus are very consistent in playing their songs live but I did not expect “Zetro’s” vocals to be that good on this night. He said in between the songs that he had been smoking all day because he was in Amsterdam. Luckily we could not hear that in his voice. He never ran out of breath and completed the show with a good, moving crowd (the old guys who were not interested in Lost Society).

Exodus played a lot of classic songs from their early catalog because of Bonded By Blood that had its anniversary this year. They also played 4 songs of their latest effort called Blood In, Blood Out which is a very good comeback record with Steve “Zetro” Souza.

The thing I missed this evening was Gary Holt. The original guitar player for Exodus. As a guitar player myself, Gary Holt is a legend. A hero if you please. In my opinion he has done more amazing riffs than Kirk Hammett, Jeff Hanneman and James Hetfield combined. He is “Mister Exodus”. Even though I have to mention that the other guitarist in his place did a great job.

After the show I went outside with my friend and we hung out with the guys from Lost Society, which I can proudly say they are our friends now. We even got the chance to meet Tom Hunting (Exodus drummer) and Steve “Zetro” Souza. They were great, down too earth guys and surprisingly calm for a band that plays very fast!

Very open for questions and pictures/autographs.

I can proudly say this was one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended.

High class musicians. They know what they’re doing. The one band longer than the other of course but I’m glad that thrash metal is very alive in 2016 and we can expect great things for the future!

Exodus Official Website
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Lost Society Official Website
Lost Society Facebook
Lost Society Twitter

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