Corbyville metal fans rock out to Anvil at Signal Brewery

Anvil just finished recording their 18th studio album. Photo by Lori-Anne Little, QNet News

By Lori-Anne Little

BELLEVILLE – The greatest metal band you have probably never heard of took the stage at Signal Brewery in Corbyville on Friday night.

In 1984, Anvil were walking on stage in Japan to play for hundreds of thousands of fans with iconic rock groups like Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, and the Scorpions. That’s a little different than taking the stage in a town with a population smaller than 200 people.

“When I saw that it was Anvil, the band from the 80’s playing, I could’t believe it – to be honest I thought they were dead,” said Adam Kozzelanko, a Loyalist College third-year civil engineering student.

The Canadian band is probably best-known for their single Metal on Metal. They were expected to become one of the biggest metal bands in the scene after revolutionizing the way metal drummers played. But that rock-star fantasy never took off for Anvil and they were almost completely forgotten about except for their hardcore fans.

The band is slowly gaining popularity again after a documentary about the band was released on Netflix.

At their show at Signal Brewery the band attracted a crowd of over 100 people, some of whom were life long fans and had been following the band since their prime in the 80s.

“I think I was about 20 years too young for that crowd,” Kozzelanko said.

But there were also some people at the show that had never heard of the band, like Robert McFadzen.

“I came with a couple of friends that knew of the band, but until like yesterday I had never heard of them – metal music isn’t really my thing but I’m glad I came tonight cause that was an experience,” McFadzen said.

The band has been credited with inspiring the music of “the big four,” which is a group of metal or more accurately “thrash” bands that emerged onto the music scene shortly after Anvil. The big four consisted of Metallica, Slayer, Megadeath, and Anthrax. The main thing that Anvil is credited for is the drumming style. Robb Rainer, the band’s drummer, combined double-bass drumming which is a common way of jazz-style drumming with the speed and endurance needed for metal drumming.

During the show  the band showed off their unique style of drumming and people were rocking out as Rainer played a 10 minute drum solo that some of the fans said could put even some of the biggest names in drumming to shame.

But it was the guitar solo by Steve Kudlow, also known as Lips, that left that crowd in awe.

Kozzelanko said “the most shocking part was when he pulled out a golden vibrator to play his guitar with – I have been to lot’s of metal concerts but I never seen anything like that.”