Rotting Corpse has never played a show outside Texas. In four decades that has still meant 18 rooms — storage-unit clubs, civic centres, a theatre in San Antonio, and a Fort Worth dive where the microphones bit back. Most of these places are gone. In several cases the hand-drawn flyer below is the only surviving proof the night happened.
Dallas, Arlington and Fort Worth — where the band came from, and where there was no scene to join in 1985.
Rotting Corpse played its first show here on Friday, December 6th, 1985 — mostly covers, plus the three songs that would become the debut demo. Steve Murphy was in the crowd that night, two years before he joined: “They played a majority of covers except the 3 songs from the first demo. It was so awesome — you couldn’t help but mosh.”
Less a venue the band conquered than the room where it got finished. Jim “Moe” Mulqueen met drummer Dave Gryder here, found they liked the same records, and set up the rehearsal that completed the founding lineup. Steve Murphy also saw Pantera here while he was still in high school, back when Darrell Abbott was billed as Diamond Darrell and the set was Van Halen and Judas Priest covers.
The band’s most regular room, and the one Walt Trachsler ran sound at through 1988 and 1989 — which meant the band was in the building constantly and met most of what came through. Sepultura played here on the Beneath the Remains tour; Murphy still rates them: “Sepultura was the most brutal band I had ever seen live.” Nuclear Assault came through too. Rotting Corpse played with Gammacide here in November, on a bill billed as “Give thanks for thrash.”
Also known as the Radiation Dump, and the source of the two best hazard stories in the band’s history. Murphy on the sound system: “I remember getting shocked so bad off a mike I saw blue for what seemed like an eternity. Scared the shit out of me.” And on the night Warlock brought pyro — a roadie packing gunpowder into a coffee can and taping it shut, with more powder than the can could take: “We were standing outside and heard the explosion above the music and then saw everyone running outside the club.” The roadie went to hospital. The show is still talked about.
Where the band met its future bassist. Steve Murphy’s first band, Eldritch Rite, ran into John Perez and Walt Trachsler at a Corrosion of Conformity show here in the autumn of 1985 — the first people either group had found who were into the same underground records. It was also the site of the worst-matched bill the band ever took: Gryder remembers being the only thrash band on an all-hardcore-punk night, playing to a room that sat on the floor and ignored them.
A KNON benefit in January 2006, and a milestone the band noticed at the time: it was the first Rotting Corpse show in Dallas proper since the spring of 1987 — nineteen years.
The homecoming. The night after the first official reunion show in Houston, the band played Arlington — and the room filled up with its own history. Original guitarist John Perez came up for a song; first vocalist Moe Mulqueen turned up and sang. They came back that December for the twentieth-anniversary show.
The two cities that were consistently good to them, then and now.
Billed as The Texas Reign of Terror. It is the show most people who were around then name as the band’s best, and the only one you can actually hear — the tape from this night is the source of the live audio on this site. Murphy: “I hear about a gig at the Cameo in San Antonio in 1986 a lot that most say was the best Corpse show.”
Chaotic even by the band’s standards. On one Ritz night Moe Mulqueen dived into the crowd, somebody made off with one of his shoes, and he refused to carry on with the set until it came back. Gryder rated the room highly anyway — a show here with Militia is one of the two out-of-town gigs he names as the good ones.
A 4th of July Brain Bash with Watchtower in 1986 — the other gig Gryder singles out: “We got a lot of positive feedback plus the other bands were super cool to us. Austin and San Antonio were always great to us!” The band came back to the same room in December 2025, thirty-nine years later.
A May 1986 date, and the source of the earliest surviving Rotting Corpse footage — the band tearing through Slayer’s “Die By The Sword” alongside its own material. Watch it →
Robb’s MetalWorks Showcase, on a bill with Helstar. Murphy called the Helstar night one of the highlights of the reunion years. The band went back on the programme again in 2024.
An Austin date in the middle of the busiest reunion year, and one of the best-photographed nights in the archive — most of the colour live shots in the gallery come from this room.
The long drives south, which produced both the band’s biggest crowds and its worst breakdowns.
Murphy’s favourite show he ever played with the band: opening for Devastation and Angkor Wat in front of a Corpus crowd that knew exactly what it was there for. “I had never played in front of so many people before and those folks really loved them some good thrash.”
Deep in the Rio Grande Valley, on a bill with Devastation and Fallen Angel. All ages, five dollars, doors at seven-thirty.
Slam Session Part 2, with Devastation and Angkor Wat. The band’s Valley runs were the longest drives it made — and, per Gryder, the ones most likely to end with a flat tyre on the side of a highway.
The opening night of the Memorial Day Massacre reunion run in May 2005, with ScumScunge and Spiracell — four nights across Corpus Christi, Houston, Arlington and Austin.
An all-ages Houston show in September 2005 with Hypo-Christians, Insect Warfare, Pretty Little Flower and Crusher. Houston gave the band its second-best reception of the reunion year, after Arlington.
If you saw one of these shows, or you have a flyer off a pole from a night that isn’t listed here, it belongs in the archive.
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