I met up with a friend in Frankfurt so that we could travel together to Mannheim and attend the show together. As we arrived in Mannheim at 10.40 in the morning we didn't see any metal fans. But as soon as we got in front of the rail station everywhere you looked were metal fans! Next thing we had to do was to get to the "Maimarkthalle", everything was very well organized with special trains and busses bringing the fans to the concert area.

We arrived there at about 11.20 and there were already many people waiting outside the venue. We placed ourselves into the queue waiting to get in. It took really long to get inside, since everyone was checked for tape recorders, cameras, weapons or whatever. Finally inside we checked out some merchandise from Iron Maiden and Slayer which was too expensive (25$ a shirt!). As I first entered the Hall I was kinda disappointed since I expected it to have some seats at the side and so on, but there was nothing just the stage, and very much space (12.000 people).

I saw many people with Slayer shirts and patches on their jackets, but the most were clearly Iron Maiden fans. Me and my friend took some photos together (Security? hahahaha....), ate something and waited for the show to begin. At about 1.30 some sort of host came on the stage and said something like "Welcome to the Metal 2000 Festival", he announced all the bands, and needless to say, the fans screamed the most when he said SLAYER and IRON MAIDEN.

I won't go into the details of the other bands here, the running order was DIRTY DEEDS, SPIRITUAL BEGGARS (sucked so much!), NASHVILLE PUSSY, MOTORHEAD (ruled!), DREAM THEATER (new definition for the word SUCKS), SLAYER, IRON MAIDEN. Motorhead was the first band which I was interested in and they really played a great gig, all their classics like "Ace of Spades", "Killed by Death" as well as their new stuff from "We are Motorhead".

As we survived DREAM THEATER, it was time for Slayer! The stage was rebuild with Slayer's amps and Paul's drumkit. As the backdrop was pulled up everybody cheered and yelled. The host announced Slayer with something like "A legend of thrash metal.." and so on. Everybody waited in great anticipation, "Hand of Doom" was used as the intro for very long....nothing happened! Obviously there were some big technical problems, because sometimes only the right side of the speakers worked during the intro.

Slayer finally entered the stage and started into "Mandatory Suicide", and that was it...everybody went crazy and the complete hall was Slayerized...haha. "War Ensemble" followed and everybody sang along "Sport the War, War Support". It was really great to see so many people totally going crazy to Slayer's music. In the middle of the song Tom made his famous "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar" scream again and everybody tried to keep up with him.

After "War Ensemble" the lights went out as the band had technical problems again. If I remember right Jeff had to change his Jackson guitar into an ESP guitar with totally different stickers. If never seen him play the ESP guitar live, I only saw it on promo pictures so far. The band then started into "Bitter Peace" which is a great song live and was accepted by the crowd really really good. "Stain of Mind" was next and I really ask myself why they do play this song live. There are lots of better ones on "Diabolus in Musica", such as "Point" or "Scrum".

I hope I remember right, in the middle of "Stain of Mind" Tom walked off the stage to change his bass since there were these fuckin' problems again. The next song was introduced by Tom with the words "Here's a new song for you, it's called HERE COMES THE PAIN!". As it seemed not many people knew the song so the crowd was pretty quiet during that one. After these 3 new songs it was time for some classics again. And when Tom said "Dance with the dead in my dream" everybody knew it was time for "Dead Skin Mask". This song was so great live! Tom did let us sing the chorus and everybody sang along, as it seemed Tom was very impressed by that!

After that Paul made the famous drumsounds for the beginning of "Raining Blood" and everybody was going insane even at the intro! It was totally crazy, the whole hall really banged and had their hands in the air. It was even going to be better, "Raining Blood" was followed by "Hell Awaits"! What a devastating combination of two songs. Between the songs people screamed for "Antichrist" or like myself for "Crypts of Eternity", but once again Slayer played their standart setlist.

"South of Heaven" was blasted out by the band in a technical perfect way and followed by "Angel of Death". At the beginning of "Angel of Death" I was like "Oh no, it can't be the last song", but unfortunately it was the last one. The people screamed for an encore but there was no chance since Slayer had spent a lot of time with these damn technical problems.

Later we enjoyed Iron Maiden who really played a great show. But at the encore Janick Gers (guitar) fell off the stage, and he had to be taken to hospital. So Iron Maiden played the encore again with two guitarists. That's why the show on July 9th in Oberhausen had to be cancelled.

After the concert we spent a night in the railway station with lots of other metal fans which was quite funny. Hell yeah, it was such a great show and such a great day!

Alltogether Slayer showed once again that they are a true live force, technically perfect and it's absolutely like magic when they are on the stage!