Testament Plays To a Sold Out Crowd in Los Angeles

Heather Vandemark
Apr 15
3 min read

Thrash of the Titans SOLD OUT The Belasco for the second to last night of the tour in Los Angeles.This venue has had many lives. In 1926, it started as a performing arts theater, then to an adult movie theater, then a church (hence the room the Confessional), and finally a music theater. I love the slanted floor, even if the tall dude is in front of you, there’s a better chance to see. Tonight the floor was a sold out circle pit!

Starting off the night of thrash was Destruction, an 80s thrash metal band from Germany. They had an 8 song set with a couple songs “Destruction” and “Scumbag Human Race” off their latest album Birth of Malice released in 2025. They played a mix of songs through their discography including “Death Trap” off their first album Infernal Overkill released in 1985. The pit and crowd surfers started off strong!

Overkill was up next. A fellow photographer that has never shot a metal show, much less a thrash metal show asked, "that was it for crowd surfers, right? That band was crazy, but the rest aren’t like that right?” Who’s going to tell him? I haven’t seen Overkill in a while, I forgot how good they’re live! They opened with the title track of their last album Scorched that was released in 2023. The crowd surfers started pouring over the rail, and the circle pit was spinning. They ended their 9 song set “Elimination” and “Fuck You”.

Waiting for Testament the photographer (reminder, he’s never been to a thrash show) said “that’s it, Testament doesn’t have crowd surfers, right?” Yeah, bud, they were just getting warmed up, it’s going to be a river flowing over. I think he thought I was just playing around until the banner dropped. They got right to it with “Into the Pit” that lit the circle pit on fire and crowd surfers coming over into the photo pit. I know I’m the crazy one, but I love all that energy, the chaos, and the big smiles as security cradles them down to the floor to run out and do it again. The setlist was a really well thought out list with the state of current events. They did say a few of the songs that haven’t been performed live or not in a really long time were pulled out of a hat, but there was a definite theme to the list. Some of the titles are obvious, but others, if you know the lyrics, all seemed to fit together.

They played three songs from their latest Para Bellum released in October 2025. We went on a journey all over their discography with The Legacy, Low, Titans of the Creation, and Practice What You Preach. A few of the surprise songs were “The Evil Has Landed”, “The Henchman Rides”, and “So Many Lies”. While this tour wrapped up in Berkley the next night, they are headed on a European tour this summer!