Anthrax Enmore Theatre Sydney review – The Enmore Theatre feels like a pressure cooker tonight. Long before Anthrax appear, the floor is already shifting with anticipation, bodies packed tight, voices raised, the sense of occasion unmistakable. More than four decades into their career, the New York thrash giants still carry the kind of reputation that changes the temperature of a room before a note is played.
Opening the night, Alien Weaponry set the tone with real force. The New Zealand trio bring a weight and precision that never feels routine, locking into thick, punishing grooves while injecting the set with a sense of cultural and musical identity that gives it extra bite. Fresh off a tour of Europe with Avatar, their songs land hard, but it is the conviction behind them that really cuts through. As a support act, they do far more than warm up the stage. They sharpen it.
By the time Anthrax arrive, the crowd is fully primed. A video is projected onto a huge white curtain which then drops to reveal the band. The response from the crowd is immediate and visceral. Fast and uncompromising, Anthrax hit with the kind of muscular clarity that explains exactly why they remain one of thrash metal’s Big Four, a lineage that includes Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth, and why that status still carries weight.
What follows is a set built for impact. Fan favourites collide with deep cuts and newer material in a run that never allows the energy to dip. The riffs come in waves, sharp and breakneck, each one designed to move the room. The pit surges constantly, but it is the crowd surfing that turns the night into something closer to controlled chaos. Bodies rise and spill forward in a near-continuous stream, lifted overhead and passed down toward the barricade before tumbling into the photography pit in quick succession. Security scramble to keep pace, photographers duck and pivot between shots, and still the tide keeps coming. It is relentless, a physical expression of just how much force this band still generates. I feel like I have been put through a heavy gym workout.
There is no distance between stage and floor tonight. Everything feels immediate. The band feed off the movement, the movement feeds off the band, and the cycle builds until the room feels like it might tip over entirely.
That is the real triumph of an Anthrax show in 2026. For a band with more than 10 million albums sold and a legacy secured years ago, there is still nothing automatic about the way they perform. Every song is attacked rather than delivered. Every moment feels earned. The years have not softened the edges. If anything, they have made the band more efficient at unleashing chaos with absolute control.
Anthrax have always thrived on grit, stamina and refusal. That story runs through the performance tonight. There is a toughness to the set, but also a generosity in the way the band give themselves over to the crowd, understanding exactly what this music means to the people who have grown up with it and to those discovering its live force for the first time.
This is thrash metal played with authority, hunger and no interest in compromise. Sydney leaves bruised, sweaty and thoroughly convinced.
Images Deb Pelser
