Thrash metal legends Slayer are currently on the second leg of Final World Tour, celebrating their almost four decades of excellence in heavy music. Will it be really their last one, we will see. They just wrapped up their North America part of the tour and are heading to Europe. We were lucky enough to catch up with them at the New Jersey show in Camden.
For the support Slayer had invited death metal legends Cannibal Corpse, heavy metal band Lamb Of God and Swedish melodic death metal band Amon Amarth. That’s an impressive lineup just there.
The first band to hit the stage, was Cannibal Corpse. Thanks to pre-holiday summer weather and New Jersey notoriously heavy traffic, I missed their set. However colleagues were very pleased with their performance and noted that it was everything you would expect from this legendary band. Catch our previous review from March here.
Next was Amon Amarth and from the beginning it was an amazing atmosphere. The stage was decorated with their big Viking boat replica and album cover art from their latest work Berserker. Vocalist Johan Hegg had a horn attached to his belt from which he later consumed as it seemed, beer in honor of Slayer. The band opened their set with their well known songs The Pursuit of Vikings, Deceiver of The Gods as Loke Falls. They followed up with Crack The Sky from Berserker, which was released May 3rd. There was only one more song from the latest album called Shield Wall otherwise they stuck with fan favorites and the regulars we have come to known them for.
The Swedish metallers have mostly kept their core sound through over twenty five years of existence. Besides Johan Hegg, as founding members still with the band are Olavi Mikkonen on lead guitar and Ted Lundstrom on bass. Johan Soderberg on rhythm guitar is with the band for over twenty years, and a relatively newcomer in Jocke Wallgren on drums. Their style is known for being labelled as Viking metal, though the band disagrees with that, mostly because of their songs being about Nordic mythology and history. During the set, the audience got the full storytelling experience through that and by the end would of been familiar with who Odin, Thor and Asgaard are. Twilight of Thunder God came rushing into the set later and saw Johan raise Thor’s hammer, which has almost become a mainstream symbol these days thanks to the popularity of such films as the Avengers. Overall Amon Amarth’s performance tonight was unique and loud as thunder.
It was a tough act to follow for Lamb Of God. The American heavy metal band from the state of Virginia who are set to release a new album sometime at the end of this year did not disappoint. They opened with Omerta, Ruin and brought the crowd to a wild frenzy with Walk with Me in Hell.
Vocalist Randy Blythe was like the energizer bunny, just going and going. And I mean it. He practically never stood still, always in motion from side to side, running across the stage and jumping. On drums tonight was Art Cruz who replaces Chris Adler while he attends to personal matters but otherwise all the usual suspects came on stage, John Campbell on bass, Mark Morton on lead guitar and Willie Adler on rhythm guitar.
There was not a single moment the band slowed down. All songs were heavy hitters including 512, Engage the Fear Machine and Redneck with which they closed out their set.
Then came Slayer time. What can I say. I guess I can summarize everything that happened in one sentence that was yelled out by some twelve year old little girl standing next to me. Just before the curtain fell and the thrash veterans appeared in front of the fans, she screamed “Yeah! Fucking Slayer!!!”. I don’t think anyone thought about the possibility of seeing this band for the last time evcer, it was more just living in the moment and enjoying the excitement.
As soon as the curtain fell and fire canons shot the fire in the air, the band blasted Repentless, the title song from their latest album released in 2015. They followed with Evil Has No Boundaries and World Painted Blood.
Tom Araya at bass and vocals together with second founding member Kerry King at guitar were as livid as even a few decades ago. Which still begs a question, why quit the live shows? They are still fit to go for another two decades. Gary Holt on guitar who has been in the band since the death of Jeff Hanneman was great, so was Paul Bostaph on drums. They really put up a show fans will not forget for a while. There were even very young kids in the crowd which showed the many generations the band have gained as fans over the years, just in front of me one dad had his three year old son on his shoulders, and every Slayer fan was giving high five to the little guy. Of course, once the pit opened up they were forced to step aside as the crazy moshing ensued from beginning to the very end of the show.
Slayer played a solid set of twenty songs. All the fan favorites blasted straight from the depths of hell – War Ensemble, Seasons in the Abyss, Hell Awaits, South Of Heaven, Raining Blood, Dead Skin Mask, Angel of Death …. There is no song to bring forward, they are all legendary hits.
What a night to experience and remember!
PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by Andris Jansons
Lamb Of God
Amon Amarth
For photos of Cannibal Corpse, head here.
For photos of Slayer, head here.
