Blind Illusion Record Release Show! with Hemotoxin, Parabellum
Neck of the Woods
San Francisco, CA
October 16, 2026
After several months of anticipation, plenty of social media teasers, and lots of vinyl pre-orders, Blind Illusion’s “Stage Flight: Live at the UC Theatre” was set to be released.
The band was excited and ready, especially the rhythm section of Avery Thurman (bass) and Phil Cosentini (drums). They each mentioned that this was the first album they had played on. A cool milestone for two impressive young musicians.
The record release show was held at Neck of the Woods in San Francisco on a Friday night, and featured two local thrash metal bands supporting Blind Illusion – Hemotoxin and Parabellum.
Parabellum was up first. Anyone who goes to metal shows regularly in the SanFran666co area has been seeing a lot of this up and coming band from Sacramento. If you’ve somehow managed to miss them, you should correct that immediately.
Not only has Parabellum established themselves as a significant band in the Bay Area Thrash Metal scene in a very short period of time (even though technically they are from just beyond the Bay), they also play a lot of gigs. You have no excuse.
After some minor technical difficulties (the lead guitarist's amp wasn’t turned on), they tore through their set playing standards like “Behold a Pale Horse” (my personal favorite) and “I am the Mockingbird”. And though it isn’t always part of their set, they performed their frequent cover of Seputura’s “Territory”. A song and album which clearly influenced the band’s sound.
They also played a new song I believe was called “Disgrace”, so hopefully we’ll be treated to a third album from Parabellum soon.
In the support slot was Hemotoxin from the East Bay. These guys have been around for 15 years, but somehow I hadn’t seen them until they played with Frolic and Blind Illusion at the Frolic Record Release show back in July.
Hemotoxin is a fantastic live band, delivering a style of progressive death / thrash metal with lots of emotion alongside the riffs, and songs that deal with trauma and mental illness. They played a bunch of songs from their 5th record, which is not out yet but will be titled The Vicious Cycle. I’m looking forward to hearing it.
Finally our headliner, Blind Illusion, came on to celebrate the release of their new live record on Hectic Records / Bleeding Priest Records, Stage Flight: Live at the UC Theatre. They played an intensely long set, close to 1 ½ hours, with songs from their entire catalog.
Will and I joked that we should have tried harder to get a headliner, so Blind Illusion would have played a tight 45 minutes. At one point Mark Biedermann remarked on stage to lead guitarist Martin Lacour that he had “a couple more in me” and then they played like 6-7 more songs!
But their set delivered a lot to like for the hardcore fans who were in attendance, from standards off their debut 1988 full length album The Sane Asylum such as "Smash the Crystal" to a lesser known track off that same album “Death Noise” that Mark said he wrote when he was 15 years old!
One big highlight of the night was having Mark Merritt, the vocalist from Ancient Mariner, join the band on stage. With his soaring Bruce Dickinson-style vocals they were able to do justice to 3 songs off the live album, “Banshee,” “Glass Guillotine”, and “Blind Sun.” Those songs, from their 1983 and 1984 demos, were performed by original vocalist David White (Heathen) on Stage Flight.
Another cool moment was having two women come to the stage to do backing vocals on "Metamorphosis of a Monster," as they had apparently done nearly 40 years ago in the recording studio as members of the Children of the Revillusion (see inner sleeve on The Sane Asylum below). So that was a bit of a full circle moment.
All in all it was a pretty amazing night. If you haven’t seen Blind Illusion recently, check them out soon. And if you haven’t picked up your copy of Stage Flight: Live at the UC Theatre yet, get one before they are gone – only 500 copies pressed.
This new live album is a celebration of many things old and new – some original late 70s / early 80s songs from way back at the beginning of the band, the new 2024 to present lineup of Blind Illusion featuring Avery, Phil and Martin alongside founding member Mark Biedermann, and the 2025 concert where the band helped Exodus celebrate the 40th anniversary of Bonded by Blood by going back to their demos which came out at the same time. Check it out!
–Hectic
