Adrenalin it starts to flow - you're thrashing all around - acting like a maniac - what is it - Whiplash!

I have a serious post coming up either tonight or tomorrow. I'll need to leave it up for a few days so I want to talk about the Anthrax concert that I went to last night before I forget about it.

I was an enormous Anthrax fan in High School. I'd listen to the Sound of White Noise on headphones for hours while I tried to recreate their logo using Microsoft paint. Eventually I was able to do it perfectly and I had versions of it over all kinds of crazy backgrounds - like I was making my own covers to albums they hadnt' yet recorded.

To my ears Anthrax's performance of "Only" on the Sound of White Noise ranks among Metallica's "Whiplash," "Battery," "Seek and Destroy," Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction," and Pantera's "Cowboys from Hell" as one of the greatest Speed Metal songs ever recorded. Live it is even more a revelation as is "Antisocial."

They're an interesting band because while they'll probably never break big they have a fan base that will probably enable them to tour for as long as they like and keep making their kind of blistering heavy metal. At the same time they spent a long time on the bleading edge of metal's evolution in a few respects. a) With Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth they are one of the original speed metal bands. b)They did the song "Caught in a Mosh" about nine years before most of the country knew what a mosh pit was (which didn't really happen until Nirvana broke). c)They invented the rap-metal genre with their performance of Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise."

I wore earplugs for most of last night's show. I had to. I think my days of walking around for days with ringing ears are over. I'd like to live a long time and I don't want to spend several decades with a hearing aid. But when the anthems got played I pulled them out - you need to in order to get the full effect of heavy metal guitars and I can't sing along with earplugs in - it just sounds too weird.

Not surprisingly the songs I liked best were the ones I heard without earphones. "Antisocial" got the biggest pit of the night going and had the best call and response element to it. There's a lot of call and response to their shows and I love the interplay between the band and the crowd. Bring the Noise was fun as well with all the band members alternating verses (alas Chuck D did not show up as was rumored). The surprise of the Night was a brief and blistering cover of "Whiplash" which I didn't even identify until I realized I was singing it.