Helstar and Omen Concert Review, Austin, TX, July 30, 2016

I love Metal Blade Records for being one of the first metal labels that were accessible in the mainstream record store market as a kid. About 90% of their first 80 or so titles were winners. One of those bands that stood above the fray was Omen. My first listen came when Danile bought Battle Cry. From there I was hooked. Before owning any physical copies of their stuff, we traded dubs of their first 2. Kelz had a dubbed cassette of those first two that was passed around between our circle of friends. Would love to see the j-card of that again. Such great memories. Those first three albums are essential to any fan of traditional metal. JD Kimball’s (RIP) vocals are the best. After he left and their followup albums came out, I admit to losing interest. I did buy their latest one, Hammer Damage, last week and I like it a lot. It’s certainly got that old school Omen vibe to it. They never came through Virginia back in those days and I had missed festival appearances in the last decade so last night I was able to scratch off another band from the list. To be honest I had a little trouble sleeping the night before like a kid on Christmas Eve.

Come show day, I gathered up my CD covers, marked the spot in The Book, took a nap, showered up and headed to the show. Doors were at 7PM and the first of the 6 bands was going on at 730. I grabbed some tacos at the place next door then went in and caught the openers, Metalriser, from San Antonio. I’ve seen them a few times in San Antonio and I like them a lot. Very Sepultura-ish with slightly cleaner vocals. It was a solid 30 minute set.

Locals Force of Rage came on next. Pass. Not a fan. By their second or third song, my date had shown up and she hadn’t had dinner yet, so back to the taco place! We had missed all of the next band, Death of a Dream. After listening to their stuff earlier in the day, I was ok with missing their set. We returned right as Black Thorn Halo came on. She looked at me when their second song started and said, “Outside?” Haha. YES! I’m not a fan of that band at all, 0%, although I think their guitarist is excellent. He also plays in a local Dio tribute. Fantastic guitarist in general.

As we were outside waiting for them to finish, I let her know about my rabid fandom of Omen and she was understanding. We went in as Omen was setting up and went right to the front of the stage. I was utterly surprised how under-attended the show was, especially since Omen rarely plays Texas even though Kenny lives in Dallas and because it was Helstar’s album release party and they generally do well in Austin because of how infrequently they play here. My guess is that there were maybe 100 total from beginning to end, but the crowd had thinned out by the time Omen came on. But we were there, at the front of stage when they opened with Death Rider and Dragon’s Breath. This is right at the beginning of their tour with Helstar and even though things were a little rough, they were still fantastic. I was just so excited to see them, singing along with everything. They played the title track from their new album, Hammer Damage, and singer Kevin Goocher forewarned us that it was only their second time playing it live and that it would be a little rough…and it was, but that was ok. To be honest, it’s my least favorite song on the new album, but it’s not a bad one by any means. They played 8 songs total and were scheduled to close with Teeth of the Hydra (!!!) but the other bands ran long, so Omen had to pay the price and get cut by one song. Add to the fact that Helstar had a hard start time. It’s my favorite song of theirs. Bummer. I met up with their singer right after the cleared the stage to sign my CD and he mentioned that Steve Wittig had left already as he had to catch a flight. So none of my stuff got signed by him, but no biggie, I’ll see them again in California is October for Frost and Fire II and again April 2017 for Spring Bash. Funny, waited 32 years to see them and now I’ll have seen then 3 times within 8 months or so.

Helstar came on and pretty much just destroyed the place. They were promoting their new album, Vampiro. It may have been the best I had ever seen them play. Currently lineup features on Larry Barrigan as the other remaining original member and he’s a fantastic player. The remnants of crowd (pun intended) that were left there piled into the floor and were very vocal and animated during the set. James’ voice was as precise as I have ever heard it. It was a fun set and the new songs sounded great. My date enjoyed both bands as well, having never heard them before.

She was patient with me as I spent a few minutes with Kenny Powell to get some CDs and The Book signed. “I love signing stuff, I appreciate anyone who appreciates us.” I mentioned how much I liked the new album and he mentioned how much trouble they had in writing and recording it. I said that it sounded like Omen. “Perfect,” he said. “That’s what I needed to hear. I wanted it to sound like classic Omen.” Mission accomplished. He signed the CDs and paused to see the Best of Metal Massacre. “What’s this? Never seen this before. Another comp that I never knew about!” He signed the book and his wife was enthralled by it, taking a picture of the cover to get one of her own.

It was a great night overall seeing old friends, making new friends and seeing one of my favorite all time bands.