After seeing such an amazing show, I just had to write a review of it. I've seen Slayer live 3 times now. The first time was at Ozzfest '99 and then on the Extreme Steel tour this summer with Pantera. This was BY FAR the best performance I have seen yet. With Dave Lombardo back behind the kit, the band definitely seemed energetic enough and Dave didn't miss a beat despite being away from the band for almost 10 years. From the time the doors opened at 8:00 PM, people were chanting, "SLAYER! SLAYER! SLAYER!" all night. Scalpers were selling tickets outside the sold-out Commodore Ballroom for $125 each--a tidy profit over the $37 face value! Slayer recorded God Hates Us All right here in Vancouver and have reportedly been big fans of our city for a few years now. The new song "Cast Down" was actually written about the drug addicts the band saw on their way to the studio everyday. Everyone in the place was stoked for what was to come and Slayer didn't disappoint.

I had never heard of Diecast before but they were actually pretty good. I'm not a big fan of hardcore but these guys were able to pull off songs that didn't all sound the same. Which brings me to Hatebreed. I had heard all of the buzz around these guys at Ozzfest with Ozzy's son actually plugging them. I figured if Ozzy's kid liked them, they MUST be good. Maybe I missed something but Hatebreed's set sounded like 40 minutes of the same song OVER AND OVER AGAIN! They must have played at least 15 songs in that short stretch because each song seemed less than 2 minutes long. Maybe if I knew their material better, I would have been able to tell the difference between the songs. Unfortunately, as much as Diecast changed my opinion of hardcore, Hatebreed set things back to square one.

But the real stars of the night were of course...SLAAAAAYYYYYYERRRRRR!!! The band came out with Darkness of Christ piped through the P.A. which set the mood for what was to come. They launched into Disciple, one of the best tracks of the new album. After a short greeting, War Ensemble tore up the pit. Everyone in the place was screaming, "SPORT THE WAR, WAR SUPPORT" along with Tom. This (as always) was one of the highlights of the show. Other highlights were Mandatory Suicide, Chemical Warfare, Die By The Sword and Hell Awaits (some of my personal favourites). I was kind of hoping for some rare treats like Black Magic, The Antichrist, Kill Again, At Dawn They Sleep, or Behind The Crooked Cross but I can't complain too much. I felt very fortunate to be at this show since both nights sold out in just a few hours. I'm also glad I finally got to see the ORIGINAL band perform together. Dave was barely recognizable since he has short hair now and was wearing a backwards baseball cap. Overall this was an amazing show and it's too bad so many had to miss it because this had to be one of Slayer's finest shows.