Event:	Testament
Written by:	itsjoeymoose
Published:	23.02.2009
Galleries:	Testament in Liverpool, UK by itsjoeymoose (10)

Faded black shirt? Check. Leather jacket? Check. Let's go to the Testament show! Old school metalheads got the chance to revisit the 80's and younger fans got a taste of the decade with Testament playing a headline show at the Liverpool Academy.

Saving the hassle of travelling to Manchester to see Testament play alongside Megadeth and Judas Priest, Liverpool was treated to a few hours of the San Francisco thrashers, playing a solid mix of the old and new.

Though I must say, for someone like me who hasn't heard a lot of Testament, I felt front man Chuck Billy didn't do a good enough job of introducing songs and it wasn't till about four songs in did he actually talk to the crowd. That said, the crowd was given little in the way of stage banter and more in the way of song after song, which nobody seemed to mind.



Billy, who recently beat cancer, occasionally paused proceedings to get the crowd involved with some statements like "I want you to scream so loud that my friends in San Francisco can hear you!" Playing the microphone stand like a guitar was also something you don't get to see very often.



Classics like 'Practise What You Preach', 'Over The Wall' and 'First Strike Is Deadly' were given the live treatment and not surprisingly went down extremely well. The ravenous crowd devoured newer songs like 'The Persecuted Won't Forget', 'More Than Meets The Eye' and the title track from their latest album 'The Formation Of Damnation'.

Testament were without a doubt on great form, with the Liverpool crowd showing their appreciation all through the show. But alas, the show has to end and so the faded black shirt and leather jacket get put away, until the next 80's band rolls into town.

Many thanks to Adam Sagir for sorting out everything.