Exodus/Anthrax/Celtic Frost

December 17^th 1987. Exodus/Anthrax/Celtic Frost in Tampa Florida. The show was at Expo Hall, Celtic Frost went on first and the crowd was pretty tame. When the lights went out and Exodus hit the stage opening with Bonded, the place went insane, shit loads of people came rushing from the back crushing all the fuckers up front. I was at this show, drunk as fuck with about 6 of my friends. Mike, Joey, Rick and Henley and a few others that I can’t remember their names. I was fucking wasted, I drank vodka like it was water and ate pills without even asking what they were back then, I was a crazy, 19 years old and with a death wish, I never or did any of my friends then think I was going to make it to 25. We rushed the stage and all of a sudden the barrier collapsed. A security guard was under it and when the mayhem subsided a little they dragged him up onto the stage, the bone in his thigh was coming through his skin and even through his pants, it was insane. Exodus stopped and the show ended at that point. Then about 15 cops came out onto the stage and lined the front. They were telling the crowd to sit, they got pelted with bottles, and cans and anything else people could throw. Anthrax came out and told everyone to be calm and they got booed and shit thrown at them too, the crowd was rabid. There was no barrier and Anthrax actually tried to play, I think they played 3 songs and a cop that was standing on the front of the stage got pulled into the crowd, all he did was hand off his gun to another cop, the rest of his stuff got taken. At one point I saw my friend with the cops radio saying help into it and laughing, a girl got handcuffed to the monitor barricade, they destroyed cars outside and broke all the windows out of the cop cars parked outside. Crazy show.

I went to Toyqube last week to an art showing of some crazy art by the Elite Gudz guys. It was amazing and I got a new kid robot toy. I also had dinner with all of them and heard some great stories, it was fun as fuck. Those guys are awesome. I spent the rest of the week writing and working part 2 of my own comic book.

This past week I tattooed my knee, I got Darth Vader with half of his mask gone and a creepy skull behind it, it was done by JR Maloney at Vanguard Tattoo, NY. I went and saw Coheed and Cambria in central park in NYC. I got a new Michelin pilot2 tire on my RC51 and fuck the thing handles like a monster; I guess that’s why the tires cost a lot more. I did some riding with my buddy Alan Tecchio from Hades and his buddy Eric Putter who is a writer. I also went out with my buddy Lenny who I did a 14,652-mile road trip with and tore up Westchester and got up to 157. Our album hit the stores this week and I leave for tour next week, we start rehearsals and I can’t wait to start playing all the new songs. Talk to you guys again soon, maybe I will search through my burnt out brain for some other concert stories.

Rob Dukes

Exhibit B: the Human Condition

For those of you who give a fuck I’m Rob Dukes, lead singer of Exodus. Since I joined the band in 2005 we’ve recorded 4 albums and in January 2010 we released “Shovel Headed Tour Machine”, a three-hour DVD documentary and a live concert at Wacken 2008 that I co-produced and directed with my long-time friend and film and TV editor Craig Cefola. Our new album “Exhibit B: the Human Condition” is going to be released on May 18th and you can hear two of the new songs on our Myspace page.

This is the first of a monthly article that I’ll be writing for Metal Army so if any of you want to hear about something specific, post your ideas or questions on the Exodus facebook page and I’ll consider them for future articles. A lot of people ask me about what I do when I’m not on tour so here is a weekend out of my life in New York:

On Friday I spent two hours in traffic listening to Iron Maiden and cursing my friend and renown tattoo artist, Bob Tyrrell for flying in from Detroit on the middle of New York City rush hour. When we finally got back to my house we ate (my wife is a great cook), had a few beers-non-alcoholic for me because I don’t drink-and then headed out to hang with my good friend and owner/tattoo artist with JR Maloney of Vanguard Tattoo in Nyack, NY. Over the years Vanguard has become my “tree fort”- most of my friends are there and much of the time you’ll find us hanging out telling funny stories or laughing at the occasional walk-in girl who wants her first ho-handle/tramp stamp or at that guy who is the cousin of a friend of a friend of someone’s sister who JR has tattooed who is looking to get some heinous tribal armband. As a guest artist for the weekend, Bob’s first tattoo was of the Rush 2112 pentagram carved into a skull.

While Bob was working on that I left and went to Long Island to see my friend Mike Destefano perform a 30 minute stand-up comedy set (when I got home I watched his comedy central special), he is a funny fucking guy and a great comic. I met Mike eight years ago when I was at a comedy club when he looked at me with my tattoos and shaved head and in his best hillbilly voice said “let’s go beat up some queers!” After the show he came up to me and we had a good laugh and quickly became friends. I’ve always wanted to do stand-up comedy-I think it’s the one totally free-form of art so I go to a lot of comedy shows and I’ve been working on material for my own set…who knows, maybe someday I’ll actually do it.
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