BLIND ILLUSION will release a live album, "Stage Flight: Live At The UC Theatre", on October 16 through Hectic Records / Bleeding Priest Records. It documents the night the Bay Area progressive thrash outfit put original vocalist David White back behind the microphone for the first time in forty years.
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White fronted BLIND ILLUSION from 1979 to 1985 before leaving to join HEATHEN, and the set the band played on April 25, 2025 at the UC Theatre in Berkeley leans on exactly that era — the early demo material, not the album most people know them for. The tracklist runs "Destroyer", "Banshee", "Glass Guillotine", "Blind Sun", "Arc The Iron", "Kamakazi" and "Smash The Crystal", with a bonus cut, "Rockers Unite", pulled from a 1983 recording at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco.
The date was not incidental. April 25 is Paul Baloff's birthday, and the show was part of the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of EXODUS' "Bonded By Blood", with EXODUS, DEATH ANGEL and NUKEM also on the bill.
BLIND ILLUSION formed in 1978 at De Anza High School in Richmond, California, founded by guitarist Mark Biedermann with Les Claypool. Their 1988 debut "The Sane Asylum" — Biedermann alongside Claypool and future PRIMUS guitarist Larry LaLonde — has spent the decades since accumulating the kind of reputation that outlives its sales figures. Biedermann also guested on Blue Öyster Cult's "Imaginos" in 1987, brought in by producer Sandy Pearlman on a record that also drew on Joe Satriani and The Doors' Robby Krieger.
The band returned in 2010 with "Demon Master", drifted back toward progressive thrash after Harald Oimoen of D.R.I. came aboard in 2014, cut a 2018 EP with Doug Piercy of HEATHEN, and released "Wrath Of The Gods" in 2022 with DEATH ANGEL's Andy Galeon on drums. The current lineup — Biedermann on lead guitar and vocals, Martin Lacour on lead guitar, Avery Thurman on bass and Phil Cosentini on drums — has been in place since 2024, and has since played "The Sane Asylum" in full for the first time at Frost And Fire V in Ventura, California.
"Stage Flight" arrives as a 12-inch vinyl LP at 33 RPM, limited to 500 copies.