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Robb Flynn is a warrior born. Early in the year — the team captain of a band with a very complicated trajectory that took them from groove metal to nu-metal to thrash to a place where they embrace their entire history–stopped a show 45 minutes into what was to be a 2 1/2 hour spectacular after a throat infection put up an insurmountable wall. A date was rescheduled. Tickets from the prior date were honored....

  That Deceased aren’t as renowned as other thrash and death acts, be they mid-level or major league, is an injustice. They should be headlining festivals large and small and packing the denimed, leathery, mophead mobs in. Instead, they gave their all in front of a small Pittsburgh crowd on a patchy, concrete floor at an odd, appropriately disheveled new Oakland venue called Babyland, which serves as a workspace for struggling artists during the day....

If Metallica hadn’t released Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, an album I feel is their best in thirty years, I may not have bothered to shell out a small ransom to catch the James and Lars Show at PPG Paints Arena. I let my expensive (over-priced?), upper-level ticket walk. Twice. Metallica began as underground heroes only to end up as metal’s mainstream, multi-platinum, mass-merchandised top heel stable. Changes in appearance and musical direction combined with some sub-par, dumbed-down...