Dark Angel, Vio-Lence, Sacred Reich
- Bleeding Priest
- 8 hours ago
- 4 min read
UC Theatre
Berkeley, CA
October 15, 2025
Mega Metal show at The UC Theatre with 6 fucking bands. I’m sorry but that’s 3 bands too many for this old Metalhead. The three bands I missed were Interceptor, Midnight and Hirax.
I actually really wanted to catch Interceptor. I’ve never seen them but checked out their music online and liked what I heard. But they went on at 5 pm and there’s no way in hell I’m spending 7 hours at The UC Theatre. So let’s talk about the bands I did see.
I got there right before Sacred Reich started, PERFECT! Death Angel did a tour of Europe with The Reich about a year ago and from that tour I made a lifelong friend in drummer Dave McClain. He’s seriously one of my favorite people I’ve ever met in the biz. Not to mention he’s one of the best Metal drummers out there.
Unfortunately this particular show was his second to last with the band and quite possibly his last full fledged tour ever. He’s had a long and VERY successful music career starting with S.A. Slayer, then joining Sacred Reich for a few albums in the early 90’s. After that he moved to the Bay Area and joined Machine Head and had a long run with them. And after all of that he went back to Sacred Reich.
But it seems like he’s lost the passion to be on the road for long stretches of time and I completely understand and respect his decision to scale things back on the live front. Don’t be surprised if you start to see a lot more S.A. Slayer shows happening which is great being that I’ve never seen them.
Anyways, Sacred Reich absolutely stole the show. They were good on the tour we did with them but this night they were playing on a whole different level. With a well mixed set of classics (“Death Squad”, “One Nation”, “Love/Hate”) and newer material they were playing like they knew they were losing their drummer…which they did. Whatever the inspiration was for putting on such a kick ass show it worked.
The support act for tonight was the current version of Vio-lence. I say current because the last three times I’ve seen them it’s a completely different lineup within the band.
For this show my buddy and old bandmate (from Vicious Rumors) Ira Black was back on guitar after a hastened departure a while back. On second guitar was Claudeous Creamer of Possessed. The kit was helmed by Nick Souza (one of Zetro’s sons) of Hatriot and lastly on bass there was Psychosomatic leader Jeff Salgado. And of course the only remaining member from the classic lineup, Sean Killian on vox.
I gotta say this new lineup seemed to gel very well and played all the Vio-lence classics you’d want to hear with gusto. I just hope they can keep this lineup solid for a little while because it’s a bit hard to stay enthused about a band that changes its lineup every time you turn around.
Sean still has the pipes and commanding stage presence he’s always had and that’s a HUGE plus. The crowd definitely ate them up.
Now for the headliner, the L.A. Caffeine Machine DARK ANGEL! I hadn’t seen them in a while so I was very much looking forward to their set.
Unfortunately the quality of sound had dipped dramatically from Sacred Reich to Dark Angel. Sacred had a powerful, defined sound that was pleasant to the ears. Vio-lence’s sound was good as well but lacked a bit of the OOMPH! that The Reich had. But Dark Angel’s sound was a mess.
I have no pleasure in saying this either because like I said I was really excited about seeing them. It was a complete cacophony set to insanely fast (at least in the Thrash realm) tempos. It was so noisy that at times it was drowning out Gene Hoglan. When you have a world class drummer such as him you’d think he would be more prominent in the mix.
This might be the reason why the crowd thinned out significantly during their set. Or it could also be that folks were exhausted from the 5 Thrash bands that played before them. For what it’s worth they’re setlist was great with classics such as “Merciless Death”, “Never To Rise Again” and show highlight and personal favorite “Death Is Certain (Life Is Not)”.
If you took a look at their setlist you’d probably say to yourself “Holy shit, this show is going to rule!” But the lackluster sound kind of prevented that. From what I could tell Gene was the machine he always is and his wife Laura was ripping on the leads. They were certainly giving it their all and you gotta respect that.
Will this hinder me from seeing them again? Not on your life. If anything it makes me look forward to the next time they come through that much more.
–Bleeding Priest
