Sanctuary

Live at the Belasco Theater

Los Angeles, CA

March 8th, 2018

Review and photos by Travis Baumann

Sanctuary are a metal band founded in Seattle in 1986. After a couple of awesome releases they disbanded for many years but came back in 2014. These early albums were in the vein of '80's thrash metal but the album that came out after their reunion, "The Year The Sun Died", exceeds this genre classification and is truly exemplary of what a great modern metal album is.

Unfortunately, a few years after this release (and before they could put out another), Warrel Dane, lead vocalist and lyrical visionary, passed away. This tour was both a memorial to Warrel and a farewell from Sanctuary.

Filling in for Warrel on this tour is Witherfall vocalist Joseph Michael. Warrel had an extremely high pitched delivery in the early years and while still hitting those crescendos at times on the new material, he also incorporated low baritones which juxtaposed excellently and also lent a gothic tinge to the vocals that pushes the music further than ever before.

Joseph was great at hitting the highs but did not really incorporate the lower octaves from the newer material, none the less, even these songs sounded really great live. This was in no small part due to the music itself with original members Lenny Rutledge on guitar and Dave Budbill on drums leading the charge. Joining these two veterans were George Hernandez on bass guitar and Joey Concepcion on additional guitar.

They opened the set with "Die for My Sins" from their 1987 debut release, "Refuge Denied" and followed it up with "Seasons of Destruction" from their 1990 sophomore release, "Into The Mirror Black". They kept with the classic material returning to their debut for "Battle Angels".

I absolutley love their last release so was really happy when they did a trio of songs from "The Year the Sun Died" starting with the powerful "Arise and Purify" leading in to the melodic "Frozen" before concluding with the title track from the album itself.

I could have listened to them do an entire set off of this album but the remainder of the set would fall back to their debut for "Soldiers of Steel" then returned to "Into The Mirror Black" for the last three songs, beginning with the title track before finishing with two of their biggest hits, "Future Tense" and finally "Taste Revenge".

It was great seeing this farewell show and getting to see these songs live, it is just so tragic that Warrel had to pass away after such a great release and with supposedly another record in the works. He left this mortal coil on December 13, 2017 so it has been only four months at the time of this concert, may he Rest in Peace.

Sanctuary are touring with Iced Earth on this final outing and for the headliner's last song, Stu Block gave a touching memoriam to Warrel and had the audience shout his name three times followed by "Sanctuary" three times as well. They sang the emotional "Watching Over You" in Warrel's honor/remembrance and the entire audience sang along.

Sanctuary's performance as well as Iced Earth's tribute was a fitting way to remember the fallen talent of Warrrel Dane. Farewell Sanctuary.

Click the banner above