»27th May 2010
Slayer
This is the fourth time I've seen Slayer and the third time I've wrote about it. Originally, the gig was supposed to be in November of last year. I found out about the gig less than two weeks before it was supposed to happen and was disappointed when it was put back to (initially) February and later May. The reason for the delays? Tom Araya is so metal that his wind-milling on stage has resulted in him having to undergo neck surgery. After six months of physio he's now not allowed to head bang any more. That doesn't matter though. This. Is. Slayer.
Obligatory stuff-that-happened-before-the-gig-section
The gig was on a Wednesday. This was bad for two reasons, firstly, it's the middle of the week and I'd have to worry about how I was going to get back from Leeds. Secondly, and more importantly, Wednesday is without a doubt the worst, most tiring day at school. Not only is the band practice on the night before, leaving me somewhat drained and raspy, but it also has the worst timetable ever:
- The morning kicks off with the aforementioned Y4/5 boys swimming--which despite the ludicrously good-looking reception girl is still a nightmare of shouting 'hurry up' and putting up with anarchic behavior.
- Lunch is chopped in two by Mr Barrowclough's Cool Rock and Roll Guitar Circus, i.e. Guitar Club, which I somewhat regret volunteering myself for now.
- Numeracy/Literacy in the afternoon. Usually these two are got out of the way in the morning when the children are more drowsy/alert. Wednesdays usually end in me presiding over a chaotic mess of Numicon blocks, idle threats and 'Stand in the corner!' and this week was no exception.
I listened to Reign in Blood, South of Heaven and Seasons in the Abyss on my way into Leeds. I proceeded to bombard Martin from the band with crêpey texts 'Where are you?' 'Where are we meeting up?' 'Where are you now?' after finding out he was attending the gig as well. I was getting very twitchy by the time I got into Leeds. At Gildesome someone got on the bus wearing a black t-shirt, they had a load of tattoos, it was a Slayer t-shirt. The sage words of the weird fat guy from the Warfield DVD rang through my head 'When you see a friend walking down the street, and you see he's wearing a Slayer shirt too, you know you can literally... you know, you know, you can deal? You know? [You know what?] You know that, you're thinking, you know.' True dat.
You can deal.
Martin wouldn't be in Leeds for another twenty minutes or so, in preparation for not missing my opportunity with the Slayer hip flask again, I got plenty of money out to spend on merchandise, then I walked up to scout out the Academy (I'd already checked it out on Google Street Maps.) Rappelling down the rocks, behind the lines, I saw that there were already Slayer fans descending on that part of Leeds.
Buoyed with the knowledge that my Slayer brethren were near, I went to look for somewhere to buy sweets. The only nearby place I could think of was down behind the Town Hall and is never open (its name suggests otherwise.) It was not open. I walked around the block one more time wondering how I would overcome the calamity of not being able to buy a Lion Bar before shambling into the Vic to await Martin.
The Vic is a fancy pants pub/wine bar. I ordered an Amstel and it came in a fancy Amstel glass, I was impressed. Dave and his wife appearred first. We sat at a table, I found out that Dave's wife is a primary teacher. Martin arrived with JP and food was ordered. The feeling was that the support act, The Haunted, wouldn't be worth checking out. It was a pretty even toss up between staying in the pub for an hour or so and standing watching a band I've not heard before so I stayed.
E3M2 - The Vic.
Eventually we made our way over to the Academy. Once inside, I was surprised with how small the venue was. I'd guess it's maybe half the size of the Apollo. This was cool because it sucks being miles away from the stage. Martin, Dave and JP went to the lower bar which is close to one side of the stage, I went to the Merch stand to get merched up, equipping myself with the Tour T-Shirt of the Slayer +2 (the Leeds gig is the first one on the list, cool!) and the Obsidian Sweat Band of Slaying +1. My AC was already maxed with my Denim Jacket of Thrash +4 but I needed the extra HP and you can never have enough resists. At the bar, Tuborg was £3.70. Becoming concerned that the hour of Slayer was approaching, I polished this off pretty quickly.
That's enough pre-gig crap. It's no great secret that I'm a huge Slayer cock-rider. Let the gushing begin.
I have a loyalty card at that place.
Slayer
Here's the set-list:World Painted Blood
Hate World Wide
Cult
Disciple
Expendable Youth
War Ensemble
Jihad
Payback
Beauty Through Order
Seasons in the Abyss
Hell Awaits
Mandatory Suicide
Chemical Warfare
Raining Blood
Aggressive Perfector
South of Heaven
Silent Scream
Angel of Death
This was a really cool set-list. The previous three times I've been to see Slayer it's either been at Unholy Alliance, or Download, so this was the first time I've seen Slayer play a full set. Needless to say, this was very good. I'll highlight some key moments.
World Painted Blood - When I first heard the new album, World Painted Blood, I was underwhelmed and thought it sounded pedestrian. I was totally wrong, and subsequent listens illustrated clearly that it's totally awesome. I think I was tired or something. Having said that, I thought the very same thing when I first heard South of Heaven. The title track from the album was a really cool song to kick off with, I particularly enjoy the first solo, where the bass is audible for a change.
Disciple - When I first got into Slayer around 2003, God Hates Us All was the most recent Slayer album, and the first proper track from that album is a particular highlight. The slow, outro is just fantastic, 'I REJECT THIS FUCKING RACE, I DESPISE THIS FUCKING PLACE!' Quite. It was around this point when I realised I'd have a hard time getting forward in the crowd and began to feel the need to be squashed by hoardes of sweaty Slayer fans. It may have been after this song that Tom talked for a little while 'It's great to be here... finally.'
Expendable Youth - I had no idea they played this live, ever. Not since Decade of Aggression anyway.
Jihad - Probably my favourite song from Christ Illusion. It was some time after this point when I started tagging along behind trains of people moving further toward the centre. I think this was the first song where they rolled out the ever-cool roaming eye graphic on the big screen behind the band. The video screen and lighting set up was pretty cool in general. The big video screen mostly cycled through explosions, fire, the Slayer logo and bullet hole graphics, on a couple of the older songs it flicked through album cover art and there was also the roaming eye graphic. It's a minor quibble, but I'd have liked more pentagrams and inverted crucifixes. I mean I'm a connoisseur like that. It was also around this point that I realised I should have charged my phone prior to the gig and was unable to take photos. Doubly annoying because they'd have been really good considering how close to the stage I was about to get.
Seasons in the Abyss - I managed to arrive at the edge of the main circle pit for this song which was awesome. It's easiest to see all the chaos of a Slayer gig at the edge of a pit like that, you've got the band up on stage belting out metal and a mass of thrashing bodies in front of you, it's great. I'm always afraid with this one that they're not going to play the intro (they skip it on the DVD War at the Warfield) but as far as I can remember, they've played this song every time I've seen them with the intro left intact.
By Seasons in the Abyss I had managed to make my way fairly close to the stage
Hell Awaits - Oh fuck me I love this song. It's got it all: forboding, slow (for Slayer) intro; really, super-heavy riffs; super-fast vocals; Satanic bells and whistles; and good opportunities to belt out 'HELLL AWAIIITS!'
Mandatory Suicide/Chemical Warfare/Raining Blood - They pretty much have to play these songs, and this is why I was so eager to get closer to the front. By this point, the circle pit was somehow behind me and I was really bloody close to the stage (The Academy is very, very good in that respect.) It was around this point that I was close enough to realise I had the same t-shirt on as Kerry King, I guess I get some points for that or something. Also, I noticed that Jeff Hanneman's guitar had a graphic on it similar to the Heineken logo except spelling out Hanneman instead, I think previous times I've seen Slayer he's just used the Heineken one.
Aggressive Perfector - I had no idea they played this live, ever. Not since Live Undead anyway.
South of Heaven/Silent Scream - This was just fantastic. The band let the last note of South of Heaven ring out for ages, super feedback and then went straight into Silent Scream, awesome. DEATH IS FUCKING YOU INSANE.
Angel of Death - The intro to this song gives you just enough time to think 'oh shit, where abouts in the crowd am I stood?' before it kicks into super thrash frenzy. Tom made a hash of the vocals on this, but it didn't matter because the crowd were shouting the lyrics right back at him. Dave Lombardo's drum solo at the end of this was godly.
After the house lights came back on I noticed that I'd lost a couple of badges from my armour I mean jacket. I scanned over the floor and was lucky enough to find one of them (the radiation logo, it would have sucked to have lost the bonus to radiation resistance.) I'm not entirely sure what the other badge I lost was, however I did pick up a rather random, albeit useless, 'Paris c'est chic.' badge. Not exactly metal eh? JP was kind enough to give everyone a lift home. On the way to the car I indulged another guilty pleasure of mine, buying bootleg posters outside the venue, and scored myself a reasonably current photo of the band for £2. On the way out of Leeds, Seasons in the Abyss was played on the stereo at very high volume.
Extar, over, out.
But all you savage cats know that I was strapped with gats whilst you were cuddling a Cabbage Patch.