Photo Credit: Martin Smith
This was Slayer’s first gig in the UK in six long years and what a gig it was. Support came in the form of Amon Amarth, Anthrax, Mastodon, Hatebreed and fast rising metal band Neckbreakker.
The large crowd of both old and young rockers were in for a treat on this warm and sunny July evening in the heart of Cardiff. Walking to the venue you got a view of the very impressive stage through a tree lined street where you are guided to some metal steps that lead into the field of oncoming mayhem and people are running to get into a good viewing position. All of the support bands are on reduced time slots because of the strict licensing laws and the 5pm gates opening time unfortunately leaves Neckbreakker off of the starting line up all together. Anthrax are reduced to a mere four songs; Caught in a Mosh, Antisocial, Got The Time and Indians which saw an enthusiastic Joey Belladonna leave the stage and head towards the barriers to high five many of the crowd. Then in no time at all it was their time to leave which was met with loud chants of ‘one more song’ from the eager crowd but there was no such luck. After a quick stage change, next up are Swedish melodic death metal giants Amon Amarth which sees a large section of the willing audience sit on the floor chanting ‘row’ as they row back and forth as the band plays ‘Put your back into the oar’ which is a sight to behold indeed.
It’s now 8.50pm and a large black curtain drops and shields the stage from view and a video starts playing on the big screens positioned to the sides of the stage which gives a history of the band from the early days with snippets from other artists from bands. These include Kirk Hammett of Metallica telling the interviewer how they inspired him and many others to join bands. The curtain drops and reveals a mesh curtain with ‘Slayer’ written in white, swirling across in random patterns the mesh drops and Gary Holt appears from the left, Kerry King from the right to the sounds of South of Heaven and a sea of devil horns go up. Paul Bostaph’s drums are loud and thunderous and Tom Araya arrives standing front centre surveying the crowd his bass ringing out. What follows is ninety minutes of pure Slayer featuring songs from across the decades. From the first notes we see the crowd surfers start which sees the pit crew working endlessly to pull them to safety and this is a constant through out the show they have earned their money this evening.
Araya reminds us that its been fourty years since their first gig in the UK back at the Marquee club in London in 1985, ‘were any of you there?’ he asks and a few shouts of ‘yes!’ come back at him. ‘Did you spit on me?’ he quips with a rye smile, ‘I think everyone did that night’ he chuckles then it’s straight back into the chaos with Jihad and its almost military style drums and menacing guitars from Holt and King. The set is mean and unforgiving with almost no breathers or casual chat just epic guitar solos , War Ensemble and Chemical Warfare closely follow with a wall of flames at either side and shooting pyro firing into the air.
Raining Blood towards the end of a brutal set and the stage is bathed in red lighting and two giant inverted crosses made out of Marshall cabinets go up in flames. The final song is Angel of Death with its thrashing guitars and the loud screaming into from Araya and a punishing double kick pattern from Bostaph. The crowd roar loudly and a sea of phones go up to capture the scene for an eternal reminder that they were there. We see a large screen at the back of the stage showing flashing images of war while white and green search lights flash constantly across the stage and with the final note large flames some twenty to thirty foot shoot up and it’s all over. As the satisfied crowd spills out onto the streets of a dark Cardiff evening we hear screams of ‘SLAYER SLAYER’ ringing out.
Slayer maybe some fourty years in the making and are now in their 60’s but tonight they have proved they are very much still a force to be reckoned with.
Written By: Martin Smith
