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SAN FRANCISCO, CA (March 19, 2024) \u2014 Bay Area metal legends FORBIDDEN announce their first annual OmegAfest on May 4, 2024 at The UC Theatre in Berkeley, CA.\u00a0When Forbidden was reborn last year things got off to a raucous start. One of the first things the band wanted to do is to be able to control their own flow. Choose where, when and what they play.<\/p>\n
Thats why they created our own festival\u2026OmegAfest!<\/p>\n
OmegAfest 2024 Lineup: Biohazard Tickets for OmegAfest are availalbe at: https:\/\/www.etix.com\/ticket\/p\/95832592\/omega-festbiohazard-forbidden-berkeley-the-uc-theatre<\/a><\/p>\n This will be the first of hopefully many more European-like festivals that the band will throw annually at the UC Theater in Berkeley. An amazing venue with a 1,400 capacity, excellent sound, stage & lights.<\/p>\n The idea is they get to hand pick the bands they play with every year covering multiple genres of heavy music. This year they have BIOHAZARD co-headlining with FORBIDDEN. BIOHAZARD\u2019s first gig back in the Bay in 30 years!<\/p>\n Each year moving forward the band will select national acts as well as a few strong up and coming local bands. A genre blend creating a more European style of eclectic talent.<\/p>\n OmegAfest will be FORBIDDEN\u2019s ONLY Bay Area appearance of 2024<\/p>\n About Forbidden After a couple of lineup changes (Paul Bostaph \/ drums & Matt Camacho \/ bass) in \u201986, the band quickly rose through the ranks of Bay Area Thrash to gain a massive following and worldwide notoriety.<\/p>\n In 1986, the band added Glen Alvelais as the second guitarist. It was this lineup that cemented itself into the Bay Area scene and soon after recorded 1988 release \u2018Forbidden Evil\u2019 for Combat Records changing the band\u2019s name to simply Forbidden.<\/p>\n In May of \u201989 while on a European tour with Sacred Reich, Forbidden played their first appearance at the Legendary Dynamo Open Air in Eindhoven, Netherlands. It was here that Forbidden made their European mark and recorded the Raw Evil EP.<\/p>\n The band returned Stateside and replaced Alvelais with Tim Calvert. Calvert was a missing ingredient that brought the band closer together as a team. They continued to tour the U.S. first with Exodus and then again with Sacred Reich with Calvert on second guitar.<\/p>\n The band went on to release Twisted Into Form in 1990, Distortion in 1994 and Green in 1996 however the band having gone though many lineup changes disbanded in 1997.<\/p>\n In 2008 Craig being inspired at a screening of the movie Get Thrashed, called the other members of the band and suggested getting back on stage to see if they could reignite the Forbidden machine. With Anderson, Locicero, Camacho back in the mix along with new additions Glen Alvelais and Gene Hoglan they played two sold out Death Angel shows in San Francisco.<\/p>\n Steve Smyth came into the mix in place of Alvelais and Mark Hernandez took Hoglan\u2019s place, the band then released Omega Wave, the 5th in the catalog and went on a US tour with Overkill. European festivals were next but afterwards Hernandez had to walk away due to personal reasons leading to a tour cancelation.<\/p>\n Sasha Horn was the answer to fill the drummer\u2019s spot.<\/p>\n After playing Bonded By Baloff with Exodus and one Bay Area show, Forbidden embarked for Chile to play the Metal Fest in Santiago. It was on this flight back home that Russ informed the band that he couldn\u2019t tour anymore because of the physical toll it was taking on him. With that, the band dissolved once again for 11 years.<\/p>\n Fast forward to 2023. The once improbable and impossible happened. Forbidden is reforming with new blood! Locicero, Camacho & Smyth remain from the Omega Wave lineup.<\/p>\n New vocalist Norman Skinner will take the elite position that belonged to Russ Anderson. Norman shocked everyone who witnessed his performance of Chalice of Blood with LA thrashers Warbringer accompanying him as the band. It was undeniable to all in attendance. Norman grew up in the Bay Area. His first thrash metal show was seeing Forbidden at the Omni. Russ would point to Norman at shows and call him \u201cLittle Russ\u201d on the mic. It could ONLY be Norman Skinner that stands aside the band.<\/p>\n The Bay Area thrash \/ punk drum Legend Chris Kontos takes over the drum throne. In a long line of world renown drummers, Kontos is the most logical & qualified man for the job. Bostaph, Jacobs, Hoglan, Hernandez, Horn\u2026 World class talents. Now Kontos.<\/p>\n Management \/ Bookings Contact:<\/strong>\u00a0Tim Healy – forbiddenmgmt2023@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n Links to Website and All Socials For all inquiries, contact: Michael Brandvold is a freelance music industry consultant based in Northern California. Having launched Michael Brandvold Marketing to leverage his years of experience to provide direction to large and small clients in the areas of online & social marketing as well as e-commerce and customer acquisition and retention.<\/p>\n Gene Simmons of KISS first tapped Michael\u2019s skills as a pioneering online marketing strategist to launch and manage all aspects of Kissonline.com\u2019s multi-million dollar enterprise, including their ground-breaking VIP ticket program.<\/p>\n Michael has also managed the online efforts for Jordan Rudess, Greg Kihn, KISS, ACCEPT, SOiL, Tantric, Killer Dwarfs, Dream Theater, Little Caesar, Narada Michael Walden, Motley Cr\u00fce, Rod Stewart, Madonna, Ozzy Osbourne, Madonna and Britney Spears to name only a few.<\/p>\n If you are interested in speaking with Michael about what he can do to assist with your marketing needs contact him online at\u00a0me@mikebrandvold.com | 415-200-8483<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bay Area Legends FORBIDDEN Annouce OmegAfest Featuring BIOHAZARD, WARBINGER, EXCITER and Five More Bands SAN FRANCISCO, CA (March 19, 2024) \u2014 Bay Area metal legends FORBIDDEN announce their first annual OmegAfest on May 4, 2024 at The UC Theatre in Berkeley, CA.\u00a0When Forbidden was reborn last year things got off to a raucous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1209,"featured_media":37160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3355],"tags":[3360,3416,3627,3052,3362,3361,3363,3415,3628,3625,3046,3629,3626,3630,3295,3624],"class_list":["post-37158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-marketing-2","category-press-releases","tag-announcements","tag-bay-area-thrash","tag-bewitcher","tag-biohazard","tag-client-announcements","tag-client-news","tag-client-press-releases","tag-craig-locicero","tag-death-grave","tag-exciter","tag-forbidden","tag-frolic","tag-hatriot","tag-hellbender","tag-thrash-metal","tag-warbringer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/pr-omegafest-2024-03-20-01.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37163,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37158\/revisions\/37163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>May 4, 2024
\nThe UC Theatre
\nBerkeley, CA<\/p>\n
\nForbidden
\nWarbringer
\nExciter
\nHatriot
\nBewitcher
\nDeath Grave
\nFrolic
\nHellbender<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Originally founded in 1985 as Forbidden Evil by singer Russ Anderson, guitarists Craig Locicero & Robb Flynn, basses John Tegio and drummer Jim Pittman, the quintet started playing house parties and Bay Area clubs such as the Legendary Ruthie\u2019s Inn soon after.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>https:\/\/officialforbidden.com\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/forbiddenofficial<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/official_forbidden\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCc4ppjqwBJgsKTh5EURZtbg<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.bandsintown.com\/a\/13563-forbidden<\/a><\/p>\n
\nMICHAEL BRANDVOLD MARKETING & MANAGEMENT
\nMichael Brandvold | me@mikebrandvold.com | 415-200-8483<\/p>\n