Overkill Opens at Riverside Theater

American thrash metal band, Overkill, opens for King Diamond at Riverside Theater in Milwaukee.

Riverside Theater held 3 bands on November 8th, creating a lively and lengthy show. Overkill, an American thrasher band, was the second to take the stage after Night Demon and held their ground. Touring throughout almost all of fall and winter, Overkill performed as an opener for King Diamond in Milwaukee for their "Scorching the Earth World Tour," which started on August 2nd 2024 in Portugal before joining King Diamond on October 15th 2024. With multiple tour dates being listed, Overkill's last performance of this tour is listed as August 9th, 2025, in the Czech Republic for the "Brutal Assault Festival."

The Setlist ran as so;

"Scorched"

"Rotten To The Core"

"Bring Me The Night"

"Hello From The Gutter"

"The Surgeon"

"Ironbound"

"Elimination"

"Fuck You" (A personal favorite.)

The five-piece band originating from New Jersey had to perform as a group of four due to Derek Tailer, who typically plays rhythm guitar, falling ill. The band included vocalist Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth, lead guitarist Dave Linsk, drummer Jeramie Kling, and former Fear Factory bassist Christian Olde Wolbers. Wolbers has been serving as a sub for D.D. Verni, who has been out for a long-term shoulder injury.

Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth discussed Verni's struggles with his shoulder within an interview with Caminhos Metálicos, mentioning, "D.D.'s got a shoulder issue that's been going on for this entire time, even back to the last record, 'The Wings Of War', it was beginning back then. So I think that the amount of shows that we did was actually a light amount. We would normally do more shows if he was healthy enough to do them. Then we do another tour coming up in September... I think he's going to do maybe 10 shows, and then he's going to go home, and we're going to have a replacement for him." Verni has ended up having a multitude of musicians to cover for him for this ailment: Christian 'SPEESY' GIESLER for the European portion of the tour, David Ellefson of the Latin American portion, and Christian Olde Wolbers for presumably a temporary part of the North American portion.

Regarding the actual performance, Overkill was probably one of the highest energy bands I've seen in a while, especially from the vocalist Ellsworth, who couldn't be seen standing still for a second (as captured in the sequences of images below).

Their songs matched their energy as well, with "The Surgeon," "Fuck You," and "Rotten To The Core" being the most notable to me. Overkill didn't seem like purely thrash metal to be "hardcore" just for the sake of it. While of course they're more on the heavier side of this genre, Overkill has notable stronger aspects of melody and refinement. Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth explains this in a similar manner, describing Overkill's most recent album, "Scorched (2023), as, “It’s not aggression for the sake of aggression; there are a lot of different elements on the record. To me, it’s more heavy metal and less of an outright thrash record. There’s a hell of a lot of melody on it.”