NAMM 2024 saw Metal Allegiance perform a night of phenomenal Thrash Metal songs at Anaheim, California’s beautiful House of Blues venue. The venue was a perfect place to host a thrash show, with plenty of floor space to mosh and seating to the back and upstairs.
NAMM 2024 – Metal Allegiance
The Anaheim House of Blues – 25 January 2024
Words And Photography: Jody Wilk
It holds about 2000 people and, by the time the show started, was packed to the brims. For those of you unfamiliar with Metal Allegiance, they are a supergroup comprised of the four core members:
Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater and formerly of Avenged Sevenfold, Sons of Apollo and many more.
Mark Menghi, bassist, songwriter, producer and the “M” in BPMD.
Alex Skolnick of Testament, and formerly of Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Savatage.
David Ellefson of The Lucid, and Dieth and formerly of Megadeth and, of course, that evening with K.K Downing.
Also appearing with the core four was Chuck Billy (Testament), Bobby Blitz (Overkill), John Bush (Armored Saint), Doc Coyle (Bad Wolves/God Forbid), Brann Dailor (Mastodon), Gary Holt (Exodus), Andreas Kisser (Sepultura), Chris Poland(ex-Megadeth), Hel Pyre (Nervosa), Troy Sanders (Mastodon), and many more.
This year marks the tenth anniversary celebration of the band and the first time back at NAMM since 2020.
This would be my first time seeing the core four of this Metal supergroup perform together, and what a badass performance it was. All the musicians were top-notch and performed at 1000%. It’s hard to pick out a moment that stood out for me, as the entire night was ear-melting. 
I can’t remember the last show that I went to that had so much talent wrapped up into a two-hour set. Nineteen of your favourite Metal and Thrash songs by Metal Allegiance, Megadeth, Motörhead, Overkill, Judas Priest and more! There was lots of moshing and crowd surfing. 
I was in the pit and saved another photographer from being clobbered by one of the crowd-surfers. They ended the set with Pledge Your Allegiance before going into an encore set of Damage Inc.(Metallica), Damage Case (Motörhead), and finally Iron Maiden (Iron Maiden). 
During the last two songs, they called up all the musicians who played throughout the night to join them on stage. This is probably the only place you will get to see all of these heavy hitters on stage together. 
If you weren’t here, you definitely missed out on probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The event was sponsored by Dean Guitars, ddrum and Heavy Headphones.
The National Association of Music Merchants, known as NAMM, hold the 2024 edition of their show from 25 January 2024 to 28 January 2024 in Anaheim, California.
This is a world-famous trade-only business show catering to domestic and international dealers and distributors restricted to owners, suppliers, journalists, employees, endorsed artists, and guests of NAMM member companies.
MetalTalk’s Jody Wilk, Shannon Wilk and Whitney Alyson Ribbins are reporting from Anaheim.
All Photography: Jody Wilk and Shannon Wilk unless otherwise stated.
All MetalTalk NAMM 2024 coverage can be found at www.metaltalk.net/tag/namm-2024.
