Armored Saint
Seven Witches
Webster Studio
New York City, New York
December 3, 2011
Tony Pijar
What a great double bill of old school metal. Playing in an intimate setting, Armored Saint and Seven Witches blew the place apart! The connection with the two bands is that Saint’s Joey Vera produced a couple of Seven Witches’ releases.
New Jersey’s Seven Witches, lead by guitarist extraordinaire Jack Frost, was excellent. Playing in support of their largely excellent new album, “Call upon the Wicked”, the band culled many songs from that release as well as “Deadly Sins”. From “Sins”, they opened with “Science” and “The Answer.” “Mental Messiah” from “Passage to the other Side” was great with Frost totally ripping on his axe. Vocalist Alan Tecchio, Mohawk intact, complemented Frost wonderfully throughout. Highlights were aplenty, but the band’s encore, “Metal Tyrant” was a memorable way to close their set as it segued into Sabbath’s “Heaven and Hell”.
Armored Saint, with both muscle and finesse intact, met all expectations. Because the venue was, again, intimate, the band’s power and surge was overwhelming. The volume, their on-stage presentation, and the audience’s persistently ecstatic response were unbelievable. “Loose Cannon” from the band’s comeback album, “La Raza” kicked things off with zealousness. However, “March of the Saint” sent the place into a frenzy; that riff remains brutal. John Bush, to me, was a wrong fit in Anthrax and is back in his rightful place. He is more diminutive than I thought and with his shaved head reminds me of a more youthful Angry Anderson from Rose Tattoo. The guys touched on all aspects of their career, but the roof-raisers were “Nervous Man”, “Can U Deliver”, “False Alarm”, “Left Hook from Right Field” from “La Raza”, and Madhouse”. Ever the crowd-friendly band, throughout the set, Bush had people from the audience come on stage, select lesser-played songs from their repertoire, and then have them sing along – very cool and very down-to-earth!
Armored Saint, when they arrived on the L.A. scene back in 1983, was dubbed the ‘headbangingest band in Los Angeles’, and they have appropriately carried that sobriquet with them over the years.