As a self-proclaimed lifelong metal head, it seems inconceivable that up until last Friday (the day of the concert) I was considering not attending the Slayer show. For several years now I\u2019ve had hard time getting excited over big production, major label concerts. One big reason is the expense; Slayer tickets were $35 each, for example. Another big turn off is my fellow concert goers. For every person at the show actually wanting to watch the band perform there seem to be a dozen morons in attendance there simply to get drunk or high, start fights, or simply act rowdy. You can pretty much count on a steady stream of people bumping into you, asking you for a smoke (even if you don\u2019t), or spilling beer on you — and quite often you\u2019ll get to experience all three from the same person. As the years go by, it becomes more and more tempting to skip the concert and pick up the inevitable DVD release of the show a few months later. (Slayer\u2019s \u201cReign in Blood: Still Reigning\u201d DVD sells for $15 on Amazon.com, and their \u201cWar at the Warfield\u201d DVD sells for $18. That\u2019s two concerts for $33 (less than the price of a concert ticket) that I can watch in comfort of my own home without having anyone spill a beer on me.)<\/p>\n

But the thing is, it\u2019s SLAYER; and not only is it Slayer, this is original line-up Slayer, with Lombardo back on drums. It\u2019s a show no headbanger can miss without coming up with a pretty good excuse (\u201cI was dead.\u201d) Once or twice a year I get talked into attending a big-to-do show, so I try to make sure the ones I attend count. I almost always have fun, as I did last night. It\u2019s kind of hard to keep referring to yourself as \u201cthe music guy\u201d to your friends and coworkers without attending a concert every now and then. Even though I was on the fence about attending the show, a couple of my work friends managed to talk me into heading out on a cold Friday night with ice still covering much of the downtown sidewalks. Our group of four set out to witness one of the most infamous heavy bands of all time — Slayer.<\/p>\n

Despite being a 33-year-old computer network engineer, I left the house wearing a black shirt, cargo shorts, combat boots and a baseball cap. It\u2019s a uniform of sorts; well, all except the baseball cap, which was simply intended to hide my graying, business-like haircut. While the hat worked, the cargo shorts really didn\u2019t — with both the Hornets and the Blazers both playing home games Friday night, all the usual $5 parking lots had been bumped up to $10, and were sold out. I rode to the concert with my friend Emily, and we ended up parking over a mile away from the venue. Halfway between our parking lot and the venue was Chilenos, where we met up with two other friends, Paula and K. After Tecates were downed and nachos were consumed, we continued our walk to the venue.<\/p>\n

Upon reaching the Bricktown Event Center we were met with a small sign that read, \u201cSold Out.\u201d K and Paula had reserved tickets but Emily and I did not. Fortunately for us, K has \u201cconnections in the industry\u201d so-to-speak and after some finagling, we ended up with two more tickets. Do not ask how K works his magic; just know that he is cooler than all of you (but not me, of course.) (I removed K\u2019s name from this post simply because I\u2019m sure the last thing he needs is people begging him for free tickets.)<\/p>\n

When we entered the venue I noticed the crowd looked like an expanded version of my MySpace page. I saw many familiar faces; people from bands, people from shows, people from all over. Because we arrived after the opening band there was no way we were going to get very close to the stage. Truth be told I didn\u2019t feel like shoving my way up there and getting pushed around anyway. The four of us ended up alongside\/behind the soundboard, which gave us a fairly decent and hassle free view of the stage.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Soon the lights dimmed and the band members emerged. Slayer quickly tore through their set like men possessed (and maybe they are, who knows). And yet, there was something about the whole show that seemed somewhat tame. There were no stage props, no backdrop, no visual presentation at all save for a few colored spotlights and bright strobe lights. Throughout the majority of the show the band stood stationary, motionless, as largely did the crowd. Another curious factor was, the volume level was noticeably low. At first I thought perhaps my ears had just adjusted to the loud levels of rock music over the years, but on the way out my suspicions were confirmed when I overheard a younger fan disapprovingly utter, \u201cdude that sucked. My ears aren\u2019t even ringing.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of the show I still couldn\u2019t decide: had Slayer grown up, had I, or had we both? The show was devoid of any real stage banter, save for a couple of very brief song introductions. The minute the last note ended, the band left the stage. No encore, no \u201cthank you Oklahoma City,\u201d nothing. Just a few moments after the band\u2019s performance ended, the house lights came on and a sea of black-shirted fans, still somewhat dazed, began pouring out of the Bricktown Event Center.<\/p>\n

I am not disappointed that I went to the show. Slayer is, well, Slayer. The songs were fast and tight and were everything I had hoped for. The bass punched us in our guts even where we stood, and the twin guitar leads of Hanneman and King were as brilliant as ever. Slayer, even when simply going through the motions, are still pretty good.<\/p>\n

[[ Set List ]]<\/p>\n

Disciple (from God Hates Us All)
\nWar Ensemble (from Seasons in the Abyss)
\nJihad (from Christ Illusion)
\nDie By The Sword (from Show No Mercy)
\nShow no Mercy (from Show No Mercy)
\nCaptor of Sin (from Haunting The Chapel)
\nCult (from Christ Illusion)
\nBloodline (from God Hates Us All)
\nMandatory Suicide (from South of Heaven)
\nSeasons In The Abyss (from Seasons in the Abyss)
\nSupremist (from Christ Illusion)
\nPostmortem (from Reign In Blood)
\nSilent Scream (from South of Heaven)
\nDead Skin Mask (from Seasons in the Abyss)
\nRaining Blood (from Reign In Blood)
\nSouth of Heaven (from South of Heaven)
\nAngel Of Death (from Reign In Blood)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a self-proclaimed lifelong metal head, it seems inconceivable that up until last Friday (the day of the concert) I was considering not attending the Slayer show. For several years now I\u2019ve had hard time getting excited over big production, major label concerts. One big reason is the expense; Slayer tickets were $35 each, for example. Another big turn off is my fellow concert goers. For every person at the show actually wanting to watch the band perform there seem to be a dozen morons in attendance there simply to get drunk or high, start fights, or simply act rowdy.… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}