ANDREAS KISSER IS PLAYING EIGHT SHOWS WITH ANTHRAX

Fans who read the headline might be hoping that this is another Elseworlds-style temporary supergroup-thing, like Gary Holt touring with Slayer or Doc Coyle touring with Lamb of God, but, alas, the above photo — taken at the 2005 Roadrunner United concert — is not to be re-created live anytime soon.

Nope. See, Scott Ian got his wife, Meat Loaf’s Daughter, preggers, and he’s staying home for a bit in order to be present for the birth of the baby. So the Sepultura guitarist will be filling in for him for eight ‘Thrax shows in July (including at least one Big 4 show), according to this tweet from Kisser, which an anonymous Portugese-speaking reader assures me says what I just told you it said.

Normally I get excited about this kinda thing, but in this instance, eh, not so much. What it means is that for eight shows, Anthrax will have neither of its original guitar players, plus a horrible sounding old lady from Florida doing vocals. And since Scott Ian doesn’t solo, that means that Kisser will actually be standing idly by as Rob Caggiano gets to hog the spotlight. And as much as I like Caggiano, that seems like a real waste of Kisser.

But I dunno, maybe this will be awesome. Maybe Kisser will end up joining The Damned Things after it’s all over. If there’s one thing that band could use, it’s another guitar player.

-AR