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March 3, 2026 Bottom of the Hill San Francisco, CA Tuesday night and The Bottom Of The Hill was sold the fuck out! The lineup was Swedish occult rockers Witchcraft , L.A.’s Candlemass worshipping doomsters Early Moods and returning locals Psychic Hit . A solid show any day of the week. Starting things off were Oakland’s Psychic Hit . This band was quite popular in the SF/Oakland scene pre-pandemic. They played frequently and every time I saw them the place was packed no mat

Bay Area thrashers Frolic have partnered with Hectic Records / Bleeding Priest Records to release their second full-length studio album this summer. Hectic Records / Bleeding Priest records specializes in putting out San Francisco Bay Area metal bands on vinyl, and Dave and Will are excited to welcome Frolic to the label as one of the best of a new generation of Bay Area thrash bands. The intergenerational nature of the Bay Area’s thrash scene is pretty special, with shows

February 27, 2026 Winters Tavern Pacifica, CA I’ve covered Phantasmal Abyss on this site before but hey, what can I say? I like them. This time it’s at Winters Tavern in Pacifica. A place I have some interesting history with. Let’s talk about that first. It was 2013, my old band The Cutthroats 9 were playing with Black Cobra (remember them?) in a series of shows we did together. In CT9 I would sometimes smash my drum kit at the end of the show. We played Slims the night be

Hey boys and girls and undecided. This is Will Carroll and welcome to another edition of Bleeding Priest’s Bay Area Metal Spotlight. Today I am covering one of my favorite bands to emerge from our wretched scene in the last few years, Vorlust with their debut full-length album, Lick the Flesh . Great stuff. Killer, nasty, dirty death metal. The guitarist is Sonny, who is also in Necrot . These bands do not sound anything alike, which is really impressive. The fact that he ca

February 14, 2026 Great American Music Hall San Francisco, CA Hey, if Will can write about Weird Al Yankovic on this heavy metal website, I can write about weird psychedelic punk rock – NYC’s Alice Donut . At least Alice Donut wrote a song about Metallica . And weird is definitely the vibe with this band, kinda Frank Zappa meets the Butthole Surfers or the Melvins . I was a big fan in the early 90s, and saw them a few times over the years, but it had been quite a while. I’

February 13, 2026 Local Tap San Francisco, CA What else are you gonna do at happy hour on a Friday? See a KISS tribute band at a tiny watering hole near the ballpark of course. Destroyer are SF’s longest running and currently only KISS tribute band. There’s been three others in The Bay that I can remember, Detroit Rock City who predate Destroyer . Heroes , who if memory serves only played one gig. And Kisser , an all female tribute that I never got the chance to see. And

February 9, 2026 The Ritz San Jose, CA February 10, 2026 The Cornerstone Berkeley, CA November 15, 1991. That’s the last time Coroner played the Bay Area. It was at The Omni in Oakland for the Shadows Of The Dark Side (Mental Vortex) tour. The last time I saw them live. THIRTY FOUR (and change) FUCKING YEARS AGO!!! Needless to say I was pretty goddamn excited to see one of my favorite bands of all time once again. I saw them two nights in a row, sort of. Let’s get into it…

February 9, 2026 DNA Lounge San Francisco, CA Question: How do you get a metal show to be over by 8:45? Answer: Announce that it is going to start really early, and then start it 30 minutes earlier than that. Even as I write this, the DNA’s website clearly says doors @ 6pm; show @ 6:30pm - 9:30pm., but apparently the show started at 6 PM. I love the DNA Lounge, but they really need to stop messing with the start times, especially for shows that are already starting early. Th

January 26, 2026 Great American Music Hall San Francisco, CA This may have been the very first time I’ve DJ’d a Metal show (or any show for that matter) on a Monday night but HEY!! Thrash Metal doesn’t give a shit about your job in the morning!! All things considered (Monday night and first night after NAMM) it was a somewhat respectable turnout for this gig. Up first was the revamped, revitalized Phantom Witch . I enjoy this incarnation of the band. Their new vocalist fits t

Laaz Rockit Know Your Enemy 1987 Roadrunner Records/Enigma Records Holy shit. It’s Bleeding Priest’s Bay Area Metal Spotlight . Who’s this fresh-faced pup talking to you right here? Yeah, new year, new face, or new old face. I shave my beard off every January. It’s just a thing I do. But anyway, I’m not here to talk about my face. I’m here to talk about Lȧȧz Rockit and Know Your Enemy . This is a ripping Bay Area metal album. This is the first album where they really started

January 23, 2026 The Knockout San Francisco, CA I like the Knockout, but it isn’t really a metal club, more of a punk rock club. Meaning that is kind of an “unserious” venue – it tends to be behind schedule, the sound isn’t often very good, and the stage is very small. The club itself certainly doesn’t have space for the equipment of 4 metal bands – especially when they aren’t sharing drum sets. This particular Friday night was no different, with a bartender who could seldom

Yes, it is true, in the city that is the dictionary definition of expensive, San Francisco, you can see great shows for less than $5 per concert. Bands like Raven, Eyehategod, Crowbar, Exhumed and more can be seen for around a buck and a quarter a band (depending on your commitment to going out, and whether you see all the openers or are lame and just show up for the headliner). What kind of scam is this, you ask? There’s no scam, and no catch. You just have to do three thing

San Fran666cco launched in February 2025, and in the first 11 months or so we listed 143 heavy metal concerts in the Bay Area on the website! Which clubs had the most metal shows in 2025? Well, here’s our top 13: Venue Number of Metal Shows in 2025 City 1 DNA Lounge 17 San Francisco 2 Eli's Mile High Club 14 Oakland 3 Neck of the Woods 10 San Francisco 4 UC Theatre 10 Berkeley 5 Great American Music Hall 8 San Francisco 6 Thee Stork Club 8 Oakland 7 Thee Parkside 7 San Franci

January 10, 2026 The Cornerstone Berkeley, CA ‘Twas a brisk night in Berkeley this January eve. The show on the menu is Cartilage , Frolic , Beheader and Vestige at The Cornerstone. I guess I should check this site more often because clearly I had no idea what time the show started. By the time I got there I had missed Vestige and Beheader were already on. Oh well. I did hear Vestige had a really good set. There will be other opportunities to see them I’m sure. Beheader

January 2, 2026 Winters Tavern Pacifica, CA So at the last minute on a rainy Friday night I decided to go out to Winters in Pacifica to check out some “death metal” bands I had never seen or heard before. I was pretty shocked on how well attended the gig was honestly. Winters is always a gamble plus with the storm in full effect I was expecting crickets but folks came out. The first and best band of the night, Astral Flesh were already on when I got there. These guys weren’t

December 30 & 31, 2025 Great American Music Hall San Francisco, CA Having just come home from tour I didn’t really make plans for NYE and was possibly going to stay home and watch the Twilight Zone marathon. Then these shows fell into my lap. I’ve DJ’d at The Great American Music Hall several times before and it’s always a lot of fun. So I was stoked when asked to spin the tunes at these two High On Fire gigs. There may have been some variation between the sets each night fo

January 3, 2026 DNA Lounge San Francisco, CA What a lineup for the first metal show of 2026! Billed as a “Post New Year’s Beating”, we had three great Bay Area thrash bands, plus two visiting from other parts of California, tearing up the DNA Lounge on a rainy Saturday night. A lotta metal for your money. I got to the DNA early to catch the opener, and there was already a good crowd on hand when doors opened, ready to ring in the new year with riffs. First up was Parabellum ,

SanFran666co Show Listings If you wanna know about Metal shows in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, SanFran666co.com is your place. We launched the site in February 2025, and in our first 11 months posted the flyers for 143 San Francisco metal concerts! Instagram gives you whatever they feel like in whatever order the algorithm decides, so often you see metal concerts that have already happened, or you might miss announcements from your favorite bands if they don’t show i

Performing Act III in its entirety December 18 & 19, 2025 The Fillmore San Francisco, CA Two sold out nights at the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco just before the holidays, wow. This annual tradition, now in its 10th year, is a Bay Area Thrash Metal community can’t miss event. I was a little bummed at first that the Xmas shows were changed from 2 nights at the Great American Music Hall, its traditional location (at least since Slim’s closed in 2020). Love the GAMH. But

Hey all, I’m back from Death Angel’s tour and ready to get busy with the site again. Speaking of tour, let me give you a brief summary of the four weeks on the road. Death Angel Act III US Tour, Nov-Dec 2025 The tour started off with a party of sorts in Seal Beach, CA at the Affliction Clothing headquarters. Hosted by Jose “Metal Ambassador” Mangin from Sirius’s Liquid Metal. It was a birthday party for his wife as well as a tour warm-up for the band. It was an intimate sett