Cavalera Conspiracy Concert Review The Marquee Theater Tempe AZ 9-15-23

Concert Review and Photos By Roc Boyum

Guitarist Max Cavalera and drummer Igor “Iggor” Cavalera are the creative forces behind the band known as Cavalera Conspiracy or simply Cavalera. The Cavalera Conspiracy collectively stormed The Marquee theater stage in Tempe, AZ on Saturday September 15, 2023 to a venue of rabid metal fans. If you’re even a casual fan of Death, Thrash and or Groove metal, then you should be familiar with the name Cavalera, considering that the Cavalera brothers Max and Igor were the founding creators of the biggest metal music product from Brazil, Sepultura!!!

This was also a full night of Thrash and Death metal with the opening bands; Nuclear Remains, Saintbreaker, INCITE, and EXHUMED respectively. Arriving a little late, I dropped in, midway into INCITE’s set with the band having the audience fired up as they incited an ongoing and swirling circle pit; pun intended! EXHUMED hit the stage and immediately shifted the audience into the next gear of intensity. The band had a front line of two guitars and a bassist who all shared the growling vocal duties. At times they all sang together, kinda like a three part growl harmony; except they were all creating one big mega growl, very cool indeed. They also had on stage, a crazy guy running around throughout their set who would wield a grinder tool that would shoot sparks off his guitar and who also wielded a chainsaw to play out the severing of band member limbs; entertaining for sure. When the band’s front man asked the audience if we have some loud MFs in the audience or if they were ready for Cavalera; the audience always responded with a resounding roar.

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A night with the Cavalera Conspiracy is sure to be a evening filled with tons of heavy chords, shredding guitars, unmerciful blast beats and aggressive vocals for sure, and the Cavalera brothers would have it no other way. For those familiar with the Cavalera brothers and the Cavalera Conspiracy, the question was; what would this band bring to the stage? Considering the extensive body of work that the Cavalera brothers have created over the years with their collective and respective various projects, such as Sepultura, Soulfly and Nailbomb to name a few bands, there is definitely a deep resevoir of music available for the offering!

First off, the Cavalera Conspiracy itself has several original LPs to it’s credit, the Cavalera brothers themselves also have music from the previously mentioned numerous projects; so WTF would this band offer up? Having just completed the re-recording of the iconic Sepultura EP, Bestial Devastation and the first full length LP by Sepultura, Morbid Visions, it was safe to anticipate a night of Sepultura music; which by the way is the first band that the Cavalera brothers started together. Check out the all new artwork for Bestial Devastation and Morbid Visions; pretty cool as well!

The cool thing is, a night of Sepultura music from the Cavalera Conspiracy is not a tribute band gig since the band features, the original founding members of Sepultura, who are sure to bring a lot of passion and fire to the music they first created together, along with a couple of ace players to really bring this iconic music alive to the stage once again.

The band played a brutal set of fifteen songs that covered both the Bestial Devastation EP and the Morbid Visions LP that these fans knew as well as the band which was expected since Max Cavalera is an Arizona resident!

The set started under the guise of a darkened stage with drummer, Iggor Cavalera, bassist Igor Amadeus Cavalera and guitarist Travis Stone poised and ready to attack, as they awaited for the entrance of Max Cavalera. As Max entered the stage, the crowd erupted with various cheers, and screams. Approaching the mic, Max strapped on his guitar…and without hesitation he screams “Bestial Devastation” into the mic……and immediately, the band launched into the title track from Sepultura’s first EP; Bestial Devastation. From the beginning of the first song, it was entirely apparent that the fan energy was going to be a bit over top on this night; especially when the band dropped into the first chunk chord breakdown of the first song that evoked a massive fist pumping army. The song finished with an audience roar and Max asking the audience; what’s up Phoenix…everybody…old school “Antichrist”! This was in reference to the title of the second song of the night, and a continuance of the Sepultura material from the Cavalera re-recording of the Bestial Devastation EP!

Max introduced the forth song of the night “Warriors of Death” by simply imparting the words…make some fucking noise! Through the night, Max would call out…circle pit, circle pit!! This always refueled the circle pit into a mass of “pit goers” and on-lookers, the latter of which, would record videos of the carnage on their phones.

The first ten songs of the set were pretty much a non-stop assault of old school Death and Thrash metal that was a barrage of blast beats and shredding guitars. The eleventh song of the night, “Funeral Rites” off their re-recording of the Morbid Visions LP was the first song of the night that was based on a theme of some real dark and heavy grind/groove metal. Although the song’s verses shift back to their core sound of Thrash, the musical sections between the verses were heavy, like an anvil dropping your head; in a good way! During one slow grinding section, the entire audience were pumping their fists and along with Max, were heard chanting, Hey,….Hey…. Hey, with the exception of the circle pit that became a walking, chanting and fist pumping circle pit of slow moving metal zombies which was pretty damn cool itself!!!

Before introducing the final song of the night, “Troops of Doom” Max introduced the band members one by one. When it came to introducing drummer Iggor Cavalera, Max said… this MF doesn’t need no introduction, and the audience chanted Iggor, Iggor, Iggor!!! Afterwards, Max thanked the Phoenix audience, by imparting; thank you from my metal heart…thank you Phoenix and asked the audience to give it up for the opening bands. The band finished the night with “Troops of Doom” which slayed the audience with one final metal assault that made for a great ending to a night of some killer old school metal.

If you’re a fan of fast, hard and heavy old school metal; don’t miss this Cavalera Conspiracy tour!

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