Former Fear Factory vocalist Burton C. Bell announces “Obsolete By Word Of Mouth,” a rare, deeply personal spoken-word experience celebrating Obsolete’s 30th anniversary, limited to 50 guests per event across three intimate dates in October in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Phones off. No recording. Just the story, told by the man who lived it. Tickets at burtoncbell.com.

Get tickets HERE

This is not a concert. “Obsolete By Word Of Mouth” is a small-scale social experiment built around the story of Obsolete and the way that story will be experienced and carried forward. For the hour-long presentation, the audience will be asked to put away their phones and stay fully present, no filming, no recording, no scrolling. What happens inside the room stays with the fifty people who were there, to be carried forward the way stories once traveled: from one person to another, by word of mouth.

Bell will share stories from the creation of Obsolete, read his original synopsis written during the album’s development, and perform the story as a movement without a microphone. He will also spend time with every guest before and after the presentation. Each attendee receives an exclusively autographed commemorative program featuring original handwritten and typed manuscripts from Bell‘s collection, a tangible piece of Obsolete history.

Bell reflects on the broader context: “Whatever negativity has happened in the past with Fear Factory doesn’t even hold up to the amount of positivity that has happened. If you think about the negative, it can weigh you down so much, but it’s not really that much in comparison to what the band achieved, what we created, what we provided to the music world, and for that I’m proud and very happy.”

Fear Factory‘s Obsolete (1998) is a genre-redefining RIAA gold-certified work in the tradition of Orwell and Bradbury, a dystopian concept album about humanity’s struggle against mechanized oppression that remains one of the landmark heavy metal records of its era. Thirty years after its release, Burton C. Bell opens its story again in an entirely different way.

Three cities. Fifty guests per room. One voice. No filming. No recording. Just the story of Obsolete, told by the man who lived it.

Obsolete By Word Of Mouth — October 2026

10/06 — San Diego, CA @ Scorpion Percussion
Guest arrival 7pm / Presentation 8pm to 9pm

10/07 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Crooked Path
Guest arrival 7pm / Presentation 8pm to 9pm

10/09 — Las Vegas, NV @ The Space
Guest arrival 7pm / Presentation 8pm to 9pm