Sepultura, Exodus, Biohazard, Tribal Gaze
- Hectic
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
UC Theatre
Berkeley, CA
May 28, 2026
This sold out Thursday night show at the UC Theatre was supposedly Sepultura’s last Bay Area show ever.
I feel like I’ve now seen them several times on their “farewell” tour. After the antics of KISS and Motley Crue and their “farewell” tours, you’d think bands might stop doing that. But Quadra came out in February 2020, and I saw Sepultura twice on the Klash of the Titans tour in 2023 with Kreator and Death Angel, and then again in 2024 with Obituary.
So I guess it had been awhile, if you don’t count seeing the amazing Cavalera brothers last year at the Great American Music Hall.
No objections from me though, it has been great seeing Sepultura a bunch of times over the last few times. Of course on this evening, I was mainly there for Exodus – can’t miss a home town Exodus show these days.
$63 including fees, man everything is getting expensive. Metal shows that never broke the $40 ceiling were a holdout for a long time. I guess Sepultura needs that retirement money.
The UC Theatre is a decent venue for a large club, but they do need to get some professionals in there to train the student volunteers – starting with a sound person for the bands who don’t bring their own. And maybe someone to program the lights?
The first two bands were backlit in unchanging blue or purple lights, no variations in lighting, making photography pretty difficult. And they both had poor sound. For the last two bands, I think they had their own people doing sound and lights. Unless the UC Theatre is aspiring to be a shitty metal club throwback to the 80s, they should do better.
The opener Tribal Gaze is a death metal band from Texas, who played death metal with frequent slow, heavy jams. I was unfamiliar with Tribal Gaze but thought they were good, and bought their record at the end of the night. There was a decent crowd there to watch them when they started at 6:30 PM, even though the merch line out in the hall stretched the full length of the venue.
I enjoyed Tribal Gaze’s set, though the sound was poor – the bass was feeding back, rattling my teeth when I was down on the floor. Going up to the second tier in the club it was slightly better, but the drums were overwhelmingly booming, and there was even bass feeding back between songs. Hello, anyone home in the sound booth?
Biohazard was second, bringing their NYC hardcore metal stylings to the stage. I like Biohazard, saw them two years prior in the same venue, but do confess that I get bored midway through their set sometimes. The floor seemed packed with their fans though, people singing along.
The poor sound problems continuing with the over booming drums and bass did not help me get into them. And the lack of a lighting person, leaving unchanging blue and purple lights up so my pictures suck even more than normal, became especially clear when the band asked people to turn on their phone lights.
Twice the band asked that the house lights be killed, but no such luck. Nothing happened, then once they gave up and started the next song the side and red light came on. Some clueless person pressed a few buttons I guess.
Note to touring bands: don't call the crowd Berkeley. That may be where you are, but almost no one in the crowd lives in Berkeley. Say Bay Area!
Exodus hit the stage like a bolt of lightning, wow. This was the second to last night of a full month tour, and they were on it. The floor was packed but I had to get down there, what an incredible set.
Singer Rob Dukes and guitarist Gary Holt did do a little bit giving the crowd shit about the energy of the pit, but hey, it was so packed on the floor that the pit had to stay small. And Bay Area crowds can be a little more mellow / stoned than some cities for sure, that’s how we like it (speaking for myself as an old person). Slayer’s “Raining Blood” intro, transforming to the classic “Toxic Waltz” got things going again though.
Sepultura put on a great show, and played a long set of crowd favorites. They had even written a new 4 track EP while on their “farewell” tour, and played at least one song off of that. They sounded good, and were certainly acting like it might be their last time playing to a Bay Area crowd – at least in that incarnation. If so, I’m glad I was there to see it.
–Hectic
