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02/04/2016

Testament 'Rise Up' to the occasion and land support slot on Slayer Tour

By RUBEN MOSQUEDA // Coming to Portland with Slayer in March.

On March 20th, 2016 Bay Area thrash vets Testament will be in Portland at The Roseland alongside L.A. thrash legends Slayer and in the support role will be German melodic death metal act Carcass. Testament have secured several high profile opening slots since the reunited and reissued 2008’s ‘Formation of Damnation.’ Since then the band have followed it up with 2012’s ‘Dark Roots of Earth’ which enable them to tour for months; three legs in fact with Anthrax behind their best effort in years ‘Worship Music.’ “Yeah we did three legs in North America with Anthrax a few years ago and it was great for us,” proclaims Billy about touring with Anthrax. “We have the same agent as Slayer so we kind of had a foot in the door. I think it’s a great package and the fans will love this,” Billy tells Oregon Music News.

There is a new album on the horizon for Testament in 2016 via Nuclear Blast Records but for now the focus is the Slayer tour. “There will be new music coming from Testament in 2016 at least that’s the hope right now. We plan on going into the studio immediately after we get done with the tour with Slayer,” says Billy. Testament have the middle slot on this tour which means the band must choose wisely when it comes to their setlist. “Well, we get about 40 minutes and when you’re having to pick from over 100 songs to get down to an 8 song set---it could be challenging. We don’t try to cater to the headliner’s audience that we are performing in front of; we do our thing. We play some of the stuff off the last two records and we get into the classics like; “Over the Wall,” Into the Pit,” or “Disciples of the Watch” stuff like that. I think you’ll probably see “Rise Up” in there and possibly “Three Days of Darkness” and maybe even “D.N.R.” trust me it goes fast!” he says. .

One thing is for sure if you snoozed on getting general admission tickets you’ll be sorry because those are gone; they have been for several weeks now. Those that were lucky enough to grab them before they were gone will be treated to a spectacular pre-summer concert season thrashing.

"Rise Up"

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