Orgy is mostly the reason this was such a horrible show. This was the first night of this tour (also with Vampires Everywhere & Death Valley High), and I think what happened was that Filter was late to set-up, and Orgy was given a shorter soundcheck.

Orgy’s set was heavily tracked, and a short soundcheck was apparently not acceptable since they needed the full time to make sure it was all synced properly. I even heard that they threatened to not play the show without a full soundcheck. Slim’s probably doesn’t care if you play it or not, but I do not think they will pay you if you don’t... and in the end, they did a terrible job of lip-syncing! It was so bad, I should have recorded it. I watched their whole set, because how could you not... and then left after one or two songs from Filter, because (1) ‘Hey Man, Nice Shot’ was probably going to be at the end of their 90 minute set, and (2) I was invited to check out TsuShiMaMiRe, a female punk rock trio from Japan, at Above DNA Lounge next door...

We all know Maynard is a weird dude, who wears a Robocop outfit on stage, and hides in the dark in the back corner of the stage. But... Tool always has a great show production, great visuals, to go along with their songs. Plus they have lasers!

I skipped a 2nd night of Tool for this show, but I wanted to see both the band and the venue. This was my first time seeing Queensryche with their ‘new’ singer, and this was also my first visit to Rockbar Theater in San Jose.

I had some good and bad observations of the venue, but none of that deserves mentioning here, since Rockbar has already been shut down this year by their apparently unscrupulous owners, and I had friends who worked there.

Todd LaTorre has been in Queensryche since 2012, so he’s not exactly new anymore! He did a great job with the old songs and hitting the high notes that Geoff Tate can’t hit anymore. Plus they brought two giant video walls onto this club stage... how can you go wrong?!

One of the opening bands (Meytal) featured an Internet-famous female drummer, who looked uncomfortable being on stage, but whose backing band featured a few well-known musicians (Doc Coyle of Bad Wolves) that probably helped with her stage fright. I watched the other opening band (Halcyon Way) only because I was at the show early enough to get a front row spot, and I don’t remember anything about them or their set...

Another first for me this year was my first visit to UC Theatre in Berkeley. I arrived early enough to scope out the place while it was still empty. The stage is at least 5 feet off the ground floor, and the 2nd tier is literally 10 feet above the back of the ground floor. I’m told that they have to have security posted at certain shows to make sure that people don’t jump down onto the crowd below.

I don’t remember anything about the bands who opened, but NOFX is always fun to see, whether you like the music or not. I think this was the first punk rock show here, so it was nice to see that the newly renovated UC Theatre could hold its own against the moshers and crowdsurfers!

Since it’s located in Berkeley, I had to leave early to catch BART back to SF, an unfortunate consequence of going to a show on the other side of the Bay, not driving there, and having work at 8am the following morning...

I worked at The Fillmore show and was posted in the barricade. This show was all general admission standing room only. I wondered why there was a barricade in the first place, but was not going to argue with what is probably one of the best spots to catch a glimpse (or many) of the show!

Steve Vai performed all of his Passion & Warfare album, which he wrote 25 years ago and never properly toured for, as well as a half-dozen other songs. Even though I was not familiar with most of the P&W songs, watching Steve perform anything on guitar is totally amazing. There are not many (if any) guitar players who can out-perform this guy!

The second time seeing Steve Vai was completely unexpected, and I didn’t think or know that it was going to happen until literally the morning of the show.

I had just started a two-week tour with Death Angel, and we were in the midst of 3 Slayer shows in Canada. At the first show, I happened to notice on Slayer’s day-sheet that they were going to Kelowna, BC, for their day off the next day. Turns out so was everyone else.

I found out that Steve Vai was going to be performing in Kelowna as well, as his tour had headed north after San Francisco. To top it all off, Death Angel’s current TM is also TM of another band that is managed by the same person who manages Steve Vai. One email later, and we had 4 tickets and after-show passes for Vai!

This show was all seated, and we were given 4th row seats. It was equally as good of a show. We then waited like 30 minutes and someone finally grabbed us to go back to the dressing room. Steve was holding down a quick meet-n-greet with everyone that was back there, and was very gracious to everyone. Afterwards, we met up with Kerry King and his entourage and followed him around sleepy downtown Kelowna like rats to the Pied Piper to the only bar that was still open. What a wonderful day off!

If it wasn’t for the ridiculously long load-out of the Dreamforce convention, I would have seen more than just the encore of this show!

In fact, I almost did. We were returning the next day to finish the load-out anyway, and I pushed to get released at 9pm or 10pm. Instead, having signed out at around 10:55pm, I don’t ever remember running over to the Warfield as fast as I did this night. I was actually surprised they were still on stage, and the 1.5 songs that I did hear was almost highlighted by nearly catching a drumstick thrown in my direction and landing near my feet, but just far enough away that the person next to me grabbed it. The reason why this is in my Top Ten is because not only were those 1.5 songs crushing, but by all accounts from my co-workers, the whole set was equally amazing.

I never saw them in the early ‘90s. I also didn’t buy a ticket for this show in advance, and I knew that it was not “sold out” as promoters always like to tell you now.

I went to AT&T Park the evening of the show, went to the box office and bought the cheapest, farthest-from-the-front ticket that I could get, and then 4 songs later, a friend who was on the field brought up her +1’s ticket stub and let me use it to walk down. By this time, it was dark and I couldn’t find the entrances to the VIP general admission sections that were in the very front, but I heard from some friends who made it in that it was easy to get in there. Ah well. The section I ended up in was close enough, and I could see the entire stage from here.

Despite all of the bad press throughout the ages about W. Axl Rose, he started on time and sounded really good. The whole band did. The setlist was great and included 8 songs from Appetite For Destruction! After the show, I lingered around the field for a while, and scored a setlist from FOH. On top of that, a guy that I know is apparently a CSC Security supervisor (I didn’t know before this) and as I noticed a few of his crew taking from the pile of extra VIP books that were left there, I asked him if I could have one too. With book in hand, this night was easily worth the $40 ticket price!

Slayer has not performed at The Warfield since December 14, 2004. (Trivia: their War At The Warfield DVD was filmed here on December 7, 2001). For years since then, whenever they returned to the Bay Area, it was at big places like Shoreline Amphitheater or Concord Amphitheater or HP Pavilion or Cow Palace. A few years ago, they were at the mid-size SJSU Events Center, then 2 nights at the Fox Theater, and now Slayer would FINALLY return to The Warfield!

There is nothing like seeing Slayer as up close and personal as you can at a theater like The Warfield (the Fox Theater shows were really good too). Having Testament and Carcass along for the ride was a plus too! I’m not sure what else I can write about this band that most of you reading this don’t already know, but I’m sure I’ll have more written by the time you make it down to read about my #1 TOP show(s)... HINT: it includes Slayer!

Even though the game was 45 miles south in Santa Clara, Super Bowl 50 brought a plethora of entertainment to San Francisco. Heart, Chris Isaak, Eric Church, Snoop Dogg & Friends, Matt Nathanson, Bob Weir, John Mayer, Hunter Hayes, The Band Perry, Dave Matthews Band, Fall Out Boy, One Republic, Nick Jonas, Vintage Trouble, Tiesto, Pharrell Williams, Skrillex, Huey Lewis and the News, Avicii, Travis Scott, Elle King, 50 Cent, Chris Brown, Future, Diplo, Alesso, The Chainsmokers, Chromeo, Jon Bon Jovi, Lukas Nelson, A$AP Rocky, Lil Wayne, Third Eye Blind, Alicia Keys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Run DMC.

I was interested in only one Super Bowl related show though: “The Night Before” featuring Metallica! As was mentioned earlier for another AT&T Park show, I didn’t buy a ticket in advance, but had a feeling that it was not “sold out” as promoters always like to tell you now. I knew this one would be a little tighter than most because of the NFL tie-in (which means that they and a lot of sponsors get access to tickets that would otherwise be sold to the public). Still though, after working at the NFL Media Week at Moscone Center and loading-out the event that very day, I met up afterwards with a ticket scalper friend at AT&T Park, who managed to score a ticket for me for the reasonable price of $60. Because I already knew what the field wristband color was, and had already made one and taped it around my wrist, I didn’t care how nosebleed the ticket was, I needed it only to get into the Park.

Their new stage production was amazing. The backline was 5 large video walls, and nothing else! There was no stage left & stage right tents (usually for monitor world and/or guitar tech world), no overhead truss grid, no overhead lights, no nothing. It looked like it was all held together by a few vertical lengths of truss, and one horizontal row spanning the five large video walls. It was very simplistic, yet amazing. It gave the members of the band an immense amount of space to run around and perform on. Not only that, there was a semi-circular ‘Snake Pit’ runway extension which brought the band nearly into the crowd whenever they decided to run out on it, and there was hundreds of people watching the show from inside of it.

Once I got onto the field, I made it all the way down to the barricade along the side of the ‘Snake Pit’, where my friend who told me what the wristband color was at. The way I managed to make it up that far was just a matter of being at the right place... a woman nearby had just passed out, a half-dozen people lifted and carried her to the Rock-Med personnel waiting inside of the barricade, while another half-dozen or so, including me, cleared people out of the way so that they could drop off this woman to Rock-Med. After she was dropped off and just about everyone went back towards where they were, I kind of peeled off and stayed. I guess I could feel a tiny bit bad about that, but really, I don’t. There was a little bit of room for me to squeeze into, and once the show started and I found my friends, nobody really cared. I won’t bore you with details about the setlist... it was a typical Metallica show, consisting of songs spanning their entire catalog. Coupled with the amazing stage production, it was simply an awesome performance overall.

Ever since this band formed in 2014, I have missed every Bay Area show they had. They first played a place here called Club X in March 2015 and then performed at Outside Lands Music Festival in August 2015.

When this show was announced for Slim’s, I was not going to miss for any reason! This show was beyond anything that I imagined. They are amazingly awesome, have McDonald’s related props, two Ronald McDonald heads that shoot lasers from the eyes, a grill with mustard and ketchup bottles, all sorts of food item props, and a 9 foot long straw that singer Ronald Osbourne pulls out of his costume and uses as a beer bong with someone’s beer from the crowd. They never once break character, and perform their food-themed Black Sabbath songs as well as (or better than) any Black Sabbath cover band would play the actual songs. It wouldn’t be nearly as funny if Mac Sabbath was not a great band. With songs like Pair-a-Buns, Frying Pan, Sweet Beef, and Zipping Up the Uniform, how can this not be awesome?! For a few months, I actually had this as my #1 TOP show of the year, but it was derailed by...

After working nearly 28 days straight during the local fall convention season, I was more than ready to hit the road for the final two weeks of Death Angel’s tour. I had been asked to fill in as merchandise manager because their current person was committed to another tour in Europe, and with the two largest local conventions (Oracle OpenWorld, Dreamforce) finished, the timing was perfect for me to break away. I would then see six Slayer, Anthrax, Death Angel shows (including 1 festival with Tool, Primus, Meshuggah), four more Anthrax, Death Angel shows, and four more Death Angel headliners.

I’ve already written about Slayer shows earlier, and these six were no different, except for the size and scope of them, which was in venues much larger than The Warfield. Slayer seems to run a tight schedule, and I imagine that every tour they do is the same way. Aside from different press requests and catering per city, it seemed like their days were mostly similar. Load-in the gear, bring in the merchandise, count and set it up, and catering for lunch somewhere during this time.

At 3:30pm, the band would start their one hour soundcheck. This was no ordinary soundcheck though, this was a VIP party for the 30-40 people who paid to watch it. The venues each opened up a temporary bar, and each person got two drink tickets, a shirt, a signed tour poster, a signed setlist, a ‘blood pack’ laminate, a set of guitar picks, and they got to watch ‘casual Slayer’ for an hour. It was Slayer in jeans and t-shirts, doing cover songs like “Surrender” by Cheap Trick (with Rob Cavestany of Death Angel), and just general goofing off while making sure their instruments sound okay. If you’re going to do a soundcheck anyway, might as well make a little extra money doing it, right?! They did end each soundcheck with 2-3 Slayer songs, complete with the full lighting package. I have no idea what that cost, but the 30-40 people at each show were definitely more than happy to be there.

From there, catering is open for dinner, and then doors open, merchandise starts to sell, bands play, load-out happens, merchandise closes, leftover shirts and money get counted and packed up, get on the bus, wake up in the next city, and do it all over again!

It was great to see Anthrax for ten shows too. I had not seen them since March 28, 2013 at The Regency Ballroom. I enjoy most of their new record For All Kings too. I never really saw too much of them on tour. Joey Belladonna was definitely the most friendly, I think I ran into him the most, and that was not even too often. I’m trying to think if there is anything more that I can write about them, but there are not as many behind-the-scenes stories as you might imagine.

The best show they had in my ten shows was Farmington, NM. The majority Native American crowd was way into both bands, but the place went mental when Anthrax played Indians! Portland, OR was a close second. That room was so packed, I could barely get in to see. I did catch a glimpse of their tour bus at the very end of the tour. We were told to go in and help clean out their cabinets of leftover food because it would just get thrown out (and we had 3 more shows)... and they were rolling around on tour in a really really nice bus!

I even almost broke my foot, which was not fun! Death Angel had only two stage crew guys, Derek (guitars) and Dave (drums). Dave asked me to help unload the trailer because Derek was MIA at the moment. No big deal, I load-in/out cases all the time at home. Towards the end, Dave took the front of the guitar vault and I rolled it from the back, but as we moved it from its spot in the trailer, at the same time, an effects rack next to it started rolling too. Dave couldn't see over the vault and we were already pushing it down the door, all the while this other case is following me, I have one hand on the vault and one on this case, it hit the edge of the trailer where the decline down the door starts, and tipped over onto a couple of my toes... I managed to get the my foot out of the way and miraculously no toes were broken... two of them just looked and felt like hell for a while! I saw a podiatrist the next day who told me that it’s basically going to have to heal itself, there’s really nothing I can do! (it looks and feels fine now as I'm writing this)

All-in-all, it was an amazing 2-week tour, and easily deserves to be my #1 TOP shows of 2016.

Towards the end of 2016, Death Angel wasn’t finished yet! They still had two special Christmas shows at Slim’s. Those shows were also the debut performances of Dress the Dead (Peter Dolving, Craig Locicero). Ghoul opened one of the shows and destroyed the place!

It would be difficult to rank each Death Angel show and place these two separately in this Top Ten, so I lumped them all together as one...