Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
January 22, 2018. Slayer announced their “farewell” tour. After over 35 years of yelling “Die By the Sword”, singer and bass player Tom Araya wants to scream no more. As much as the fans would want Slayer to keep performing forever, Tom and the only other original member, guitar player Kerry King, deserve to go out on top and begin collecting their 401k. Gary Holt, the 2nd guitar player, will always have his primary band Exodus, and certainly bands will be lining up for drummer Paul Bostaph’s services once he becomes available again. In the meanwhile, though, according to a press release issued the morning after The. Final. U.S. Slayer. Show., this “farewell” tour still has another year to go!
On August 26, 2018, Slayer brought this “farewell” tour to SAP Center in San Jose. This was the last show of the second U.S. leg, and prior to the aforementioned press release, some of the 8,000 assembled believed that Northern California was lucky to have The. Final. U.S. Slayer. Show. Others knew better. If this was indeed The. Final. U.S. Slayer. Show, there would have been 10x more press about it (and 30 more photographers in the photo pit!), and 500 more family and guests. In November, they are headed overseas to Europe for a month, and although no dates were issued in that press release, rumor has it there will be a third U.S. leg, as well as another European leg… and undoubtedly Slayer won’t forget to go to South America, Japan, Australia, the North and South Poles, and everywhere else to give everyone at least one more opportunity to see them.
Before Slayer was to heat up and lay waste to the SAP Center, though, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Testament, and Napalm Death were summoned to get the crowd warmed up.
Napalm Death hit the stage at precisely 5pm and provided a quick 30 minute lesson in English grindcore death metal. How they are able to squeeze 12 songs, plus talk to the still-arriving masses in between, is a wonder that needs to be seen. Being the first opening band meant very little stage real estate, but Mark “Barney” Greenway did his best with the space, constantly wandering all over from left to right and back again, for the entire set. Not much movement was had from the rest of the band, as they were kinda busy dishing out their blistering fast guitar, bass, and drums, respectively.
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One of the advantages, at least for 60% of Testament, of having The. Final. U.S. Slayer. Show. happen in the Bay Area was that they weren’t far from home, and could probably just leave the tour bus at the arena and drive their own car (except Alex Skolnick and Gene Hoglan, they still had to travel more!). Still early at 5:55pm, Testament played to a very large crowd that was more than likely at full capacity by the end of the set. It was still early, perhaps dinner time for some, but since this was a Sunday, it was doubtful many had to worry about this conflicting with their work schedules. Although only 35 minutes, Chuck & Co. delivered their usual amazing energetic set, 8 songs (only 1 from their latest) spanning 6 albums! The band even showcased their newest “guitar player” Chuck Billy. He’s always air-guitar’d on his half mic stand during the guitar solos, but man, was he on fire tonight! Not only was he shredding the solos, but he had more guitar picks on all 3 mic stands than Alex or Eric Peterson had of their own (Steve DiGiorgio is a finger player, so no picks), and he was flinging them everywhere! For those who happen to have been living under a rock for the past 30 years, crawled out just for this show, and caught a white pick with Chuck Billy’s signature on it, they might not have known that Alex and Eric were the ones actually providing those soothing guitar sounds.
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As soon as Iron Maiden’s ‘Number of the Beast’ finished over the PA, and the intro to Pantera’s ‘Cowboys From Hell’ started to be played live, those on the floor who were not yet tired of moshing and circle pits were about to get stomped for the next 40 minutes (the old people in the seats were safe)… this is generally what happens when Anthrax runs out on stage with their first song being ‘Caught in a Mosh’! Ever since Joey Belladonna returned to Anthrax, they have been rejuvenated and a pleasure to watch, and their current album ‘For All Kings’ is remarkable. Similar to Mark “Barney” Greenway of Napalm Death earlier, Joey was all over the stage and rarely stood still (he also had a lot more ground to cover). He was the only person from any band to acknowledge those in the photo pit, and he definitely hammed it up for a few lucky photographers. 7 songs and 40 minutes was much too short of a set.
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Lamb of God has been Slayer’s choice for direct support since their July 2017 tour. Just over a year later, Lamb of God are still tearing it up, and in fact will be with Slayer on the next leg of the “farewell” tour in Europe in November. Their 9 song, 50 minute set to close out this leg of the tour was intense, as well as dark (here’s looking at you, lighting guy…). It’s amazing that Randy Blythe can scream and jump and wail around like he does every night leg after leg, and it’s no wonder that Slayer continues to travel the world with them.
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As soon as Lamb of God was done and their equipment shuffled offstage, a kabuki curtain was dropped to hide all of the activity that was setting up on stage for Slayer to devastate the assembled masses. (except for the seats on the side, they could see everything and were therefore probably not as surprised…)
4 hours and 20 minutes (4:20 anyone?) after Napalm Death played the first note of the day/night, the lights finally dimmed, crosses were projected on the kabuki curtain, those crosses eventually inverted, turned into pentagrams and eventually into the Slayer logo. As soon as this appeared, the curtain was dropped and revealed Tom at center stage, Kerry at stage left, Gary at stage right, and Paul behind them all.
Slayer did not miss a beat, came out swinging, and literally turned up the heat on this tour! The stage was almost identical to their last couple of arena tours, but this time, they let their pyrotechnics team get crazy and there was an insane amount of fire and flames. A row of Marshall amps on fire… check. Two metal ‘eagle’ logo decorations on fire… check. Flames simultaneously shooting horizontally and vertically to form an inverted cross… check. Everything on fire at the same time… check. 19 songs in 90 minutes, spanning 11 different albums over their astonishing career, this was definitely a setlist worthy of a “farewell” show. (although hearing all of Reign in Blood once more would be nice…) It remains to be seen whether or not this was indeed The. Final. Bay. Area. Slayer. Show. After the last song, Tom stayed on stage for an extra moment to thank everyone for the years and decades of support, but it would be crazy for them to not come back again to the place that literally birthed the brand of music that they play.
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See more photos of all of your favorite Heavy Metal musicians at Alan Ralph‘s photo portfolio.
