After more than a decade, Shai Hulud brought their live show back to Los Angeles on Thursday, November 13, 2025. The OG metalcore band brought OC hardcore favorites Taken and Tacoma’s Denial of Life along to fill out the lineup at 1720 Warehouse.

Opening the show was the hardcore thrash band from the Pacific Northwest, Denial of Life. Putting on an energetic performance, the band won the crowd over as the venue started to fill up. Formed just before the COVID pandemic started, the crossover thrashers have already been making big waves. Prior to this tour with Shai Hulud, the bands toured Europe together with Bleeding Through. DOL’s latest album Witness the Power was released on Creator-Destructor Records during this run. Their latest videos for “Circle the Drain” and “Sword of Fire” are up at the band’s YouTube channel.

Orange County’s melodic hardcore heavyweights Taken were up next with some subtitutes in their lineup. Vocalist, and podcaster, Ray Harkins was out on a previously planned international anniversary trip, so It Prevails and Lament vocalist Ian Fike handled the frontman duties. Jon Berndston from San Diego’s The Beautiful Mistake was on bass. Everyone crushed it, and the crowd was anything but disappointed. Iodine Recordings currently has the compilation The Dogs of Hope, a benefit for shelter animals, out now and streaming everywhere including the track “D4” by Taken, which was previously only sold on a tour EP in Japan.

For the first time since 2014, Shai Hulud took the stage in Los Angeles. The band insisted on removing the barricade for this show, and to the surprise of even some 1720 staff, it was. Geert van der Velde is still back on vocals, and he invited the crowd to use the mic and the stage as their own. Also returning were mainstay Matt Fox on guitar and Stijn van Gestel on bass. Rounding out the lineup was Unearth’s Peter Layman on guitar and Daniel Pouliot from HORSE the band on drums.

Whether the fans had been awaiting their return or the Dune movies brought new fans or both, it was a love fest between the band and the crowd. Considered by many to be the original metalcore band in its original form as a true crossover of metal and hardcore, the band made their case that night with a blistering onslaught of hardcore metal. The band finishes the next leg of this tour with Holder in December and will tour Australia and New Zealand in January.

Denial of Life

Taken

Shai Hulud