Kerry King At L'Olympia

During a bitterly cold Winter weekend, Montreal’s Théâtre L’Olympia was warmed by a Southern wind.  Kerry King was in town, with an all-star band of heavy metal heroes along for the ride on this tour in support of his debut solo album, ‘From Hell I Rise’.  We got a small taste of their power last August when they were in town supporting Lamb Of God and Mastodon, but this return as a headliner showed off the band and all of the musical power.  One look at Kerry King and you know that he means business.  In a musical genre full of characters, none say ‘heavy metal’ more than him.  With his shaved head, tattoos, beard and attitude on stage, few others better define the music that they play.  As a co-founder of one of the most legendary thrash metal bands of all time, Slayer, Kerry King could easily rest on his laurels.  Instead, he has returned with an album that can stand proudly next to those of the now retired band he created.  Kerry King didn’t come to town alone.  His band is like an all-star team of Heavy Metal royalty.  Mark Osegueda of Death Angel handles the singing.  His voice and delivery on this night is as remarkable as always.  Fellow guitarist Phil Demmel from Machine Head and bassist Kyle Sanders from Hellyeah are wailing while Paul Bostaph, who spent some time with KerryKing in Slayer, is bring the thunder on the drums.  The set list consists most of songs from ‘From Hell I Rise’, his debut solo album that was released last year, but you knew that there would be some Slayer songs thrown in to the mix as well.  There were even a couple of early covers of Iron Maiden songs as a tribute to their former singer Paul Di’Anno who passed away last year.  The year is still young but this will probably go down as one of the better Heavy Metal concerts that the city will see.  The opening intensity of Alien Weaponry, followed by the hard driving party thrash of Municipal Waste is a formidable one-two punch.  They are then followed by one of the founding members of Slayer and his band of Metal Mercenaries.  Good luck trying to top this trio.  All of the photographs were taken at f/3.2 while using various different shutter speeds, ISO setting and focal lengths.  Here are the rest of the photographs that I took of Kerry King and his band while they performed on the Théâtre L'Olympia stage.

If you would like to find out more about Kerry King and his music, you can do so by following the link to his website.  If you would like to see the photographs that I took of Alien Weaponry and Municipal Waste, who also performed that night, you can do so by following the respective links.  Much thanks to Selena Fraggasi of FR-PR, Heidi Robinson-Fitzgerald of HERFitz PR and Christopher Gonda of V13 Media for getting me a pass to shoot the show.  As always, it is very much appreciated.  As one of the founding fathers of Thrash Metal, Kerry King's reputation is set in stone.  Despite having more than enough laurels to rest on, he's still producing killer albums and putting on terrific shows.  Don't miss Kerry King when he brings his show to your town.