Aftershock Festival Day 1 Recap: Cypress Hill, Anthrax, Testament and More
Aftershock Festival
Day 1
w/ Cypress Hill, Anthrax, Testament, Exodus, Death Angel, Knocked Loose, Fit For A King, Oxymorrons
Discovery Park
Sacramento, CA
Thursday, October 7th, 2021
Review by Jared Stossel
There’s something that’s rather fitting about parts of Sacramento’s Aftershock Festival taking place underneath a highway overpass that cuts through the city’s downtown area. Metal and punk have always been genres that have thrived in the underbelly, in crappy night clubs, in DIY spaces. These are genres that have, with a few exceptions, been rejected by the traditional musical mainstream. So to see bands like Testament, Exodus, and Death Angel rip through sets of 80s-fueled thrash metal on a stage that has cars speeding over it while fans cheer them on throughout a surprisingly chilly evening makes sense to me.
After almost two years of waiting (the lineup for 2020 was announced the year prior), Sacramento’s Aftershock Festival (set to be headlined tonight and Sunday night by the Bay Area’s own Metallica) kicked off on Thursday night in Discovery Park. While I unfortunately missed sets from Oxymorrons and Fit For A King as I was heading to the venue (next time, guys), I made my way over and caught the rest of Death Angel’s set. Death Angel was one of three bands (next to Exodus and Testament) that are part of the upcoming “Bay Strikes Back” tour set to kick off next year, which showcases three of the band’s responsible for the prominent rise of the thrash metal scene in the 80s. All three bands brought forth tremendous and powerful sets throughout the evening. Over on the main stage, Knocked Loose playing a crushingly heavy set, turning evening the stingiest of metal purists into believers. “One thing you need to know about this band is that we love breakdowns,” vocalist Bryan Garris remarked to the crowd as they powered through a brutal 35-minute set.
As Bay Area metal legends tore up the “Coors Light Stage” situated on the other side of the park, “Big Four” act Anthrax took to the Main Stage, the “Kolas Stage” for a 45 minute set that celebrated the band’s forty-year tenure in the heavy metal community. Anthrax are a band that aren’t as big on the theatricality as some of their other peers in the “Big Four” (Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth) but they can play just as intricately and powerfully as their contemporaries. There’s a reason that they’ve lasted this long. The evening was closed by Cypress Hill, the act that were set to be the most out-of-place act on a lineup consisting of thrash metal and hardcore. With that being said, Cypress Hill delivered a great hour long set, bringing a different vibe to the end of the night, but one that worked well. (The night was originally supposed to be headlined by Limp Bizkit and Faith No More, both of whom cancelled their tour dates for 2021). I was happily surprised to see that so many people stayed to close out the night.
Usually, the “preview night” of a festival doesn’t draw as heavily as the forthcoming weekend (similar to how a Comic-Con doesn’t always have its biggest and best on display at their panels until the Friday and Saturday dates). But Aftershock’s Thursday night kick-off proved to be a lot of fun, welcoming the anticipation of things to come throughout this weekend.
Cypress Hill Set List
Another Body Drops
When The Shit Goes Down
A to the K
Hand on the Pump
Pigs (mashup with Sound of Da Police by KRS-One)
Latin Lingo
Latin Thugs
(DJ Lord and Eric Bobo jam)
Roll It Up, Light It Up, Smoke It Up
Dr. Greenthumb
Hits From The Bong
How I Could Just Kill A Man
I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That
(Rock) Superstar
Insane in the Brain
Jump Around (House of Pain cover)
Aftershock Festival
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Twitter: @AFTERSHOCKSAC
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