Overkill Bring the ‘Wrecking Crew’ to Destroy New York City

On Saturday, May 12, thrash metal legends Overkill played the final date of their 'Electric Age' tour in front of 2000 rabid hometown fans. For nearly two hours, the band cranked out tracks encompassing their entire career and put on one of the greatest live shows we've ever seen … period.

God Forbid proved to be one of the favorites of Overkill's 'Wrecking Crew.' Like Overkill, the band is billed from New Jersey -- and very much like Overkill, New York City gave the band a homecoming welcome.

D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles) made a special appearance as their tour crossed paths with the 'Electric Age' tour -- treating the crowd with some of the rawest crossover thrash on the planet. D.R.I. radiated with crusty punk attitude -- celebrating their 30th year as a band by giving the crowd a solid set to thrash around to. Some fans in the pit may have legitimately been running around in circles nonstop for 45 minutes.

As Overkill's road crew set up the stage with giant walls of amps and a radioactive riser filled with toxic waste fueling the drum kit, the mass of fans from New York and New Jersey waited in euphoric limbo for their thrash metal heroes to take the stage. Finally, Overkill emerged from the thick fog to begin their set with 'Come and Get It,' the opening track from their 2012 record, 'The Electric Age.' With a rhythm section strong enough to act as the foundation for a thousand-story building, crippling solos from guitarist Dave Linsk and the superhuman voice of Bobby Blitz mixed in with his light-speed exits and entrances from on and off the stage, Overkill absolutely crushed it with a five-star performance.

With an extra handful of songs added for the New York crowd, Overkill churned through fan favorites such as 'Rotten to the Core' and 'Old School,' while proclaiming their modern prowess with 'Ironbound,' 'Electric Rattlesnake,' 'Wish You Were Dead' and many more.

One observation of the show proved to be incredibly interesting. Soon after Overkill took the stage, a massive fight broke out in the back end of the pit. As two fans began punching the hell out of each other (with their respective friends both joining in and attempting to pull the two apart), a strange shift in the show's aura of chaos occurred. Having broken up the fight, both groups of friends successfully created peace through intelligent discourse, resulting in the metalhead comrades hugging away their issues with not one person being thrown out onto the street by security. Who says we can't all get along?

One of the most powerful things a music fan can ever hope to experience is the feeling of being completely and unexpectedly blown away by a live performance. We've seen a lot of shows in our time -- a LOT of shows -- but Overkill's performance on May 12 will always stand out to us (and certainly many fans) as one of those rare, jaw dropping, "Holy hell" occurrences. Bobby Blitz gave a rare "More than a man, less than a God" performance, and the wailing frontman truly deserves to have his name in the same ranks as Bruce Dickinson, Rob Halford and Ronnie James Dio.

Check out this fan-filmed footage of Overkill playing 'Elimination' from the May 12 show. And check back with Loudwire in a couple of days for our backstage interview with Bobby Blitz.

Watch Overkill Play 'Elimination'