Slayer

This past week I finally got to see Slayer live, and holy shit did they ever live up to my expectations.

The opening band was pretty weak, but Gojira got the crowd going pretty well. I've never cared for them much before when I've checked out their albums, but they kept my attention for their whole set. I'm going to have to give them another listen or two.

The venue got absolutely packed while we waited for Slayer to set up, which seemed to take forever. Once they finally started playing, though, I was pretty amazed that four dudes who are getting on in years could keep up such an amazing amount of energy for the whole ~2 hour set. I'm not a super-huge Slayer fan, but I was able to recognize the majority of the songs. They had a good amount of classic stuff in the set, Mandatory Suicide, Seasons in the Abyss, Raining Blood, South of Heaven, and Angel of Death. Probably there were a few others that I've forgotten by now (blame the proximity high... so much weed in that venue).

Of course, the crowd lived up to its reputation as well. There wasn't exactly a mosh pit... it was more like a mosh system, with satellites and orbits and shit. At one point I counted at least four simultaneous pits going on that I could see. When Slayer first started their set, a fairly large one opened up behind me. There was a pretty scrawny little dude on the very edge who looked a bit panicky about how rough it was getting. I couldn't help but laugh a little bit, and I guess he noticed cause he started grinning too, and then FWOOSH some gigantic dude plowed into him and I never saw the kid again for the rest of the show :).

Tom Araya sounded kinda bummed at first when he would address the crowd, which is pretty understandable given that they lost a founding member this year. I'm definitely disappointed that I never got to see them while Jeff was around, but I thought Gary Holt did a great job filling in. I hope they stick around long enough for me to catch another tour.