A special celebration took place the other night in Van Nuys, California that marked yet another year, as revelers hung out, sang songs, and all the while partied throughout the night. And while it was also New Year’s Eve, it was actually Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian‘s 60th birthday. That’s right — the big 6-0 came to our favorite Jewish metalhead from Queens and the celebration was a who’s who of rock and metal.
Taking place at the Galpin Speed Shop, the celebration featured what could only be described as a massive 42-song jam session. Seriously, according to Blabbermouth, the lineup included: Ian’s Anthrax bandmates Charlie Benante and Frank Bello, Exodus’ Gary Holt, Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, Dethklok’s Brendon Small, King’s X’s Doug Pinnick, Fall Out Boy’s Andrew Hurley, Ugly Kid Joe’s Whitfield Crane, Stone Sour/Ministry’s Roy Mayorga, Machine Head’s Robb Flynn, Rival Sons’ Jay Buchanan, Nuclear Assault’s Danny Lilker, Armored Saint’s John Bush and Joey Vera, and Alice In Chains’ own Jerry Cantrell.
In a post reminiscing about the party, Ian said he was happy to have the “greatest birthday party entrance of all time,” which consisted of him arriving to the venue in a Batmobile as “Raining Blood” played. Which honestly is pretty on-brand for the guy.
“My 60th was everything I hoped it would be and I’ll be sharing clips all week. Thank you to everyone that made it happen – Pearl, Revel, Dave, Mikaela, Mary, Matt, Mark, Nate, Phil. Your hard work made my crazy dream come true! Happy new year everyone!!! Cheers, Scott.”
And while there are many videos from that night worth watching, some of which I’ll have below, my favorite one has to be Cantrell singing along to Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right.” As a boy from New Jersey, my love for Billy Joel knows no bounds, so it only makes sense that Ian would have the Piano Man represented in some way.
As we all know, Anthrax is currently hard at work on their followup to 2016’s For All Kings. Though it’s expected sometime this year, we’ll have to see what happens since Benante’s got some previously planned engagements with some band called Pantera.
Either way, happy belated birthday Scott Ian. Thanks for the riffs.