This was a night of metal that was as good as you will ever see at Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas! It was the last night of the Testament's North American Brotherhood of the Snake tour with Prong, Seputura and support Dying Gorgeous Lies, and the bands enthusiasm overflowed during their sets, it was party time in Las Vegas...and what better city to end a tour!
Opening the show was a young band from Germany called Dying Gorgeous Lies, a female fronted thrash band featuring the magenta-haired Liz Gor Geous. Liz is in constant motion onstage, moving back and forth while screaming out the vocals, with a great young band all around her. Since this show featured some tenured heavyweights Dying played a short but appreciated set that had the crowd chanting for more.
Dying Gorgeous Lies Photos: Harold Mountain/JustAFanPhotos
Next on the lineup was one of my all time favs Prong featuring Tommy Victor on guitar. This time around the band once again had a revamped lineup with Mike Longworth on bass and Art Cruz on drums, but as always the star of this band is Tommy who has played with Ministry and Danzig too. Tommy's unique guitar sound echoed throughout the venue as the band ripped through Prong classics such as "Who's Fist is the Anyway" and "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck". Prong also played a pretty short set, but really got the crowd pumped and with a little encouragement the first of what would be a night long mosh pit opened up in the middle of the big main floor. It was a great tour-ending show from a very underrated band -Congrats to Prong!
Prong Photos: Harold Mountain/JustAFanPhotos
Now things really heated up with Sepultura taking the stage! This is a band that people either love or don't care for due to the many changes over the past years, but one thing is for sure, Sepultura always delivers an impressive show. Starting things off the band opened with the blistering "I am the Enemy" a scorching song that set the tone for their show. Sepultura is fronted by the imposing Derrick Green along with longtime guitarist Andreas Rudolf Kisser who is responsible for that classic pounding Sepultura sound. On bass is Paulo Jr. who has been in the band the longest since 1985, and on drums it was Eloy Casagrande, the youngest member at just 26 years of age. The band finished off the show with Sepultura classics "Refuse Resist", "Ratamahatta" and finally the Sepultura National Anthem " Roots Bloody Roots", and the band took a group photo with the crowd and thie leg of the tour came to a close.
Seputura Photos: Harold Mountain/JustAFanPhotos
Now it was time for the legendary Testament. Testament is one of the pioneers of thrash metal, having been together for 34 years, and the band was touring to promote their latest release The Brotherhood of the Snake CD which came out in 2016. This is their 2nd highest charting Cd, reaching #20 on the Billboard 200. Testament is Chuck Billy on vocals, Eric Peterson on guitar, Alex Skolnick on guitar, Gene Hoglan on drums and Steve DiGiogrio on bass. This was a classic old school 80's thrash show that even included guitar solos, a drum solo and a bass solo. Chuck Billy is fun to watch onstage, and when he isn't singing he is playing air guitar on his shorted mic stand - even going so far as to grab guitar pics off the other guitar players mic stands, and pretending he is doing solos and tossing pics into the extended hands of the fans. Testament did a long show, 21 songs in all, and add that to the other bands and they crowd got their moneys' worth with nearly 50 rocking thrash / metal songs being played for the tour finale show. Testament finished the night with a 2 song encore that included "Practice What You Preach" and "Over The Wall", and with that a very memorable and sort of rare night of Thrash Metal concluded at the amazing Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas.
Testament Photos: Harold Mountain/JustAFanPhotos
