Death Angel June 2025 Tour Update 3
- Bleeding Priest
- Jun 20
- 4 min read
Hi again. We’re still here in Europe while things are becoming a real shit sandwich back home. Believe me, folks are watching what’s going on in the U.S. very closely out here. But let’s talk about something fun like the last batch of gigs we just did.
From last we left off we were about to play the Into The Grave festival in the Netherlands which was a helluva good time. We had a very strong set and played to the maximum crowd capacity. Holland is kind of Death Angel’s European home base and we have a TON of friends there.
Before I get into the fest with greater detail I wanna talk about my day off in Eindhoven. I spent the day scouring for record shops in town to unload some Hellhunter “Hellbanger” ep’s. I found 5. Three were a success. The other 2 weren’t. One hadn’t been open for like a year and the other was in a mall with K-Pop “artists” in the window. I didn’t even bother to go in. I can just imagine the look they’d give the second they saw the cover art. All in all it was a productive day.
Now back to the fest. Phil Campbell (Motörhead) played right after us with his band The Bastard Sons and did a set of all Motörhead songs. Unfortunately we had a signing session at the same time which was only supposed to be 15 minutes but lasted almost an hour so I missed his whole damn set. It sounded great from what I could hear. I’ve always been a fan of his and I even really enjoyed his album from 2019 Old Lions Still Roar. I was pretty bummed I missed his set.
After the signing I went straight to my buddy Manfred’s record tent to see what kind of bootlegs he had. He has his own label, Happy Face Records which specializes in Thrash and Death Metal live bootlegs. I picked up an amazing Coroner double live boot with two concerts from 88’ and 89’. SCORE!!
More importantly he had a copy of the Hellhunter ep for sale. He picked up a few copies from Dave and I and has been very helpful finding other distributors who might want to pick it up. Once business was over I went behind the record bins and planted myself in a comfy chair and watched the rest of the fest with Motörhead beer in hand. I gotta say, and this is not the Motörhead fan in me talking, it was one of the most delicious beers I’ve ever had. I tried both variations and both were equally good. Then the whiskey infused beer came out and it was all over.
I watched this band called Wind Rose perform and I know they’ve played the DNA in SF before and seem to do well but I tells ya, this “yo ho ho and a bottle of rum” type of Metal just ain’t my bag but some folks seem to genuinely enjoy it. Good for them I suppose. But all the while I was primed for the main event, W.A.S.P.
Blackie Lawless has made promises in the past that he really didn’t live up to in terms of the stage show on recent tours i.e. the blood, torture rack etc. So I was a tad skeptical if he was really going to do the entire first W.A.S.P. album from cover to cover as promised. Let me tell ya, the man did not disappoint. I couldn’t believe I was hearing songs like “B.A.D.” and “Tormenter” live blasting in my face. Manfred and I were drunkenly singing along like two high school dropouts. It was glorious. Hands down one of the best times I’ve ever seen W.A.S.P. The sound was impeccable.
Once they finished the debut album I was spent and didn’t stick around for the encore, which was lengthy. Actually I did stick around for the first song “Inside The Electric Circus” which I must say was pretty rad to hear. Whatever bitter feelings I had about losing the chance to tour with W.A.S.P. last year quickly vanished with that rad performance.
The next gig was a headliner in Dover. A Monday night in Dover was exactly what you’d expect it to be. It wasn’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination but I won’t be thinking about it five minutes after writing this.
Oddly enough Phil Campbell played there a few nights before us. One cool thing was the opening band was Steve Smyth’s (ex-Forbidden) One Machine who were really good. Think of Bay Area Thrash meets early Queensryche with a lead vocalist who can belt it out like Dickinson. It’s always cool to see a friend from The Bay on the other side of the pond.
The third gig was in London at the Electric Brixton and was the best show of the tour thus far. The crowd were insane and the whole vibe in the club was electric. Speaking of electric, the power cut out twice on us, the second time being at the very end of the last song “Thrown To The Wolves” which resulted in me doing a drum solo to close the show. The crowd ate it up and it almost worked in our favor. It was such a fun set.
Municipal Waste closed the show. There was a local opener named Tortured Demon or something but I missed them but I did catch Xentrix who sounded just like they did back in the day. Kind of like mid era Sacrifice. And I think three of the members were original which is always a plus.
The night ended with a raging party on the bus to the tune of my New Wave playlist entitled NOT METAL! Talk to you soon.
–Bleeding Priest
