OVERKILL ::

OVERKILL / 10 FOLD B-LOW / CONTRADICTION
planet music / vienna, austria
09th may 2005

there is a certain magic to things that have accompanied you through a lengthy period of your time. things that you will perhaps one day look back upon and not really understand why you liked them in the first place, but somehow can't help feel nostalgic about it. even more beautiful if those things never lose their enchanting powers and stay with you throughout your entire life. i believe that my relationship with music goes far beyond my memory. i do know that i loved music from the moment i have any recollection of my life. at age 10 i befriended heavy metal. and it has stayed with me since. i hope it won't go away. ever.

what's that sappy paragraph all about? well... one of my favorite thrash metal bands came to town... after about 10 years or more... and it was the first time i had the opportunity to see them live. OVERKILL.
you see, this concert was more fun than most things recently, but at the same time it has saddened me deeply. OVERKILL... you'd think that people know the band... or at least their name! you'd think that anyone listening to any kind of heavy metal that comes from the thrash or death school, anybody who has any idea about what has gone on before, would come to see OVERKILL live. to see an influential and great band perform. how disappointing when there are no more than 150 people... most of them about as old as the members of the band... the few youngsters who did attend the concert mostly staring blankly at the stage, probably wondering how those old farts could've ever meant anything to the metal world. perhaps i am too much of a fanboy here, but i was secretely hoping for a packed venue, a young crowd cheering on these metal dinosaurs that can still rip any baby-band 2 or 3 new ones.

because neither blitz nor d.d. had lost any of their grit, dave linsk and derek tailer are superb guitarists and tim mallare sure gelled with verni's rythmic overflow. THIS is thrash metal! and i'm not talking about stylistic definitions - although OVERKILL are right there defining the famous bay area thrash style, although they hail from new jersey - or encyclopaedic music details. what i refer to is that unbroken punky, kick-to-the-teeth spirit that will keep thrash metal my favorite music genre of all time. what rockabilly might've meant to the youth of the 1950ies, that's what thrash metal is for the youth of the 1980ies... and still has not found a suitable replacement within rock 'n' roll. THIS is pure rebellion - a straight "we don't care what you say! fuck you!" attitude that got lost so quickly in punk, but was revived by thrashers. that all-out, all-there energy they want to share. it is hard to describe and most certainly is too subjective to be of any merit to anyone who doesn't share at least basic interest in thrash metal with me here, but let me tell you, there's the "fuck you!" that a frustrated teenager will say to their parents just to spite them... and then there's this eternal "fuck you!" that is going through art, in all eras, in all disciplines, in all styles - that knowing refusal, that which is rebellion. just to say "no!", not because you want to be an ass, and surely not because you want to change things around, but only because you feel that you have your own place and you will sure as hell not let it be dictated by anyone and not taken away from you. this is yours, whether "they" like it or not.

and so i stood there, a huge grin splitting my face wide open, listening to the summoning call of "wrecking crew", sharing the anger of "under one", singing for the underdog in "hello from the gutter", spitting it out with "thanx for nothing", panicking to "elimination". and even their hats-off to the old punk days from their latest album, "old school", did not seem forced or detrited.

and to finish this off with an excerpt from "old school" that i think sums the attitude of the entire show up pretty nicely... but before that i bow my head and hope my heart keeps on skipping a beat everytime i hear a fucking good thrash tune.

"[...] we played it fast, we played it loud, a bit too much, a bit too proud, the only way we knew to do it right [...] here's to the old school , didn't matter if you looked cool, we drank some beers and broke some heads, we never gave a shit [...]"