Four thrash metal bands decided one day that they should tour Europe together under the flag of good ol’ Headbanger’s Ball. The only Dutch date was on the 5th of December when in the Netherlands we celebrate Sinterklaas. And that means that traffic is rather unpredictable, but very likely there’s a lot. As the gig started quite early – 18.30 – I missed the first band due to work and traffic. The Greek Suicidal Angels just finished their set when I entered the venue.

After a quick changeover it was time for the Bay Area Thrashers of Death Angel. I never cared that much for them. The first album is pretty good, Act has some good songs, for the rest I don’t much listen to them. Fortunately they played a couple of old songs I recognised such as Evil Priest and Mistress of Pain. It sounded all quite tight. The singer was as chatty as list time I saw them, meaning that they could have played one song more instead. Anyway pretty okay gig.

The band I mainly wanted to see was Sodom. The have a new line-up, with Frank Blackfire returning and even added a second guitarist to the line-up for the first time. And the new drummer is Asphyx’ drummer. They hung a jacket over the drumkit that should an Asphyx logo. The stage was adorned with a couple of banners with the Persecution Mania cover and Knarrenheinz with red lights in his helmet. After the intro Procession to Golgotha they stared with the old Blasphemer. The majority of the set consisted of old songs, especially from Agent Orange. The only recent songs were the two new songs of the EP they just released. I had hoped that Nuclear Winter was on the set list again, but unfortunately not. Bombenhagel was the only song from Persecution Mania. One Step over the Line was a bit of an odd choice for a song from the awesome Tapping the Vein album. Franks guitar playing was a bit sloppy especially during the solos, and him spitting water was quite annoying. All in all a pretty good gig. With an interesting set list. Hopefully they come back to do a full headline gig soon.

The last band of the day was Exodus. I had seen them this summer, and the gig was quite comparable. Lots of energy on stage and the band played tight. They only played one new song – Body Harvest – and for the remainder of the gig it was mostly Bonded By Blood songs with a few odd once from other albums. Fabulous Disaster was in the set this time. Even the really old Impaler was played which was quite cool. Quite a good gig once again.