The lights went down and the crowd went nuts as “Darkness of Christ” played while the band took the stage. Naturally, that led into them opening w/ “Disciple”. I think that they did another new song, but I’m not sure. Tom Araya stopped after that to greet the crowd and kick into “War Ensemble”, my cue to enter the pit. After that came a mix of songs, whose order I do not completely remember, but they followed “War…” with “At Dawn They Sleep”.

There’s nothing quite as heartwarming as being part of a pit while Araya is Chanting “Kill… Kill…Kill…” during the bridge. Next came another new song that gave me a few minutes to recuperate on the pit’s edge. By “new” I refer to any post- “Seasons in the Abyss” material. While some great songs have been released in those years and nothing is “New Metallica” bad, most of their music written after “Seasons…” just doesn’t move me the way their older stuff does. But I digress.

As always, Slayer dusted off some old songs that aren’t among their heavies- something that I’ve always loved about their shows. I could tell that some of the younger guys around the pit didn’t recognize “Fight ‘Till Death”, but I was loving it. “FTD” was followed by “Necrophiliac” after an introduction by Araya. “This song is dedicated to the ladies… the older ladies… the ones six feet under…” You can get a pretty good idea of where the narration went, and it concluded with a comment about maggots being crunchy like Pop Rocks. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Death Metal’s answer to Bruce Springsteen.

Next up were three new songs, which led me to drop back to where my cousin was hanging for a breather. Two of them were “Stain of Mind” & “Payback”. I'm guessing that the third was from “Divine Intervention”, as that was it for the new stuff and I didn't recognize it. While hanging back I couldn't help but think of a review of Slayer’s new live DVD that a buddy sent to me:

http://dvd.ign.com/articles/437/437931p1.html

It was a generally favorable review, but it noted that the band had lost a step over the years, citing slightly lesser intensity levels and the fact that Tom Araya wasn’t hitting the high notes like he used to. I didn’t really buy the argument, as Tom hasn’t been hitting the high notes since as long as I’ve been going to see them (I first saw them in ’91, Clash of the Titans- the rotation had Slayer headlining my show and until now was my #1 concert of all time). And as for energy, Hanneman and King were in their usual spots on stage, barely moving and with looks on their faces like they’re ready to kill every single person in the crowd. Again, that’s another staple for Slayer. One thing that I did notice was that they seemed to be taking very short breaks between almost every song. Nothing long enough to even be irritating, but a far cry from the “South of Heaven/Raining Blood/Alter of Sacrifice/Jesus Saves” runs of the past. Maybe they were losing a step. At this point I was about 20 minutes away from concluding that the reviewer was an a-hole and remembering why Slayer is the most intense band on this planet. But again, I digress.

My cue to re-enter the pit came when Araya introduced what he called “A war song that could be about any of you in a few years…. Mandatory! Suicide!” Remember the lack of consecutive songs that I mentioned? “Suicide…” led directly into “Hell Awaits”. Tom then asked the crowd to sing along to a ballad of theirs… “Dance with the dead in my dreams” …Dead Skin Mask. As the last notes were dying down I was among a number of people in the crowd shouting for “Seasons in the Abyss”, but nobody seemed to mind when “South of Heaven” kicked in instead. I was expecting “South’s…” fade out to lead into “Raining Blood”, but I soon realized that they were going straight into “Angel of Death”. It actually took me a moment to recognize the song, as I’m used to it always getting introduced at the end of the night by Araya screaming the song title while Hanneman and King start blasting the opening notes. After “Angel…” the stage went dark and the band left the stage, ending the set. Dehydrated, I retired from the pit to grab some Gatorade at the bar. The set seemed a bit short, and I wondered what they were coming back with, having already played some of their heavies, including “Angel…”. Walking away, I had total faith at this point, and Slayer would deliver.

Before I had even made my way out of the performance area, the band was back out and kicking in with another obscure track- “Piece by Piece”. I thought it was pretty cool, following “Angel…” with the second track from “Reign in Blood”. Cooler still when “Necrophobic” was next. That led to the logical progression of “Alter of Sacrifice” and “Jesus Saves”. At this point, you’re probably seeing the same pattern that I did, but right now I’m also wondering if Slayer is actually going to go through with it. The stage went dark after “Jesus…”, and the band took another very short break.

Then I heard it. One beat on the bass drum. Was that just Lombardo messing around, or are they…? Drumsticks lightly going across the cymbals. No way. Another lone beat of the bass drum. More cymbals. Holy crap. “Criminally Insane”, which can mean only one thing. They are playing “Reign in Blood” from start to finish.

I am in shock at this point. I have never heard of a band way past their prime (Still gods, yes, but past their prime nonetheless) playing their best album, released well over a decade ago, in its entirety. Can you imagine AC/DC doing “Back in Black”, Maiden doing “Number of the Beast”, or George Michael performing “Faith” today? OK, I just wanted to see if you were still paying attention on that last one.

But can you imagine James Hetfield making an announcement to Metallica fans sounding something like this: “Hey, you fuckers know how we like to do medleys of our older albums so that we have enough time to cram all of our new shit down your throats? Well, we’re going to do something different tonight! We’re going to roll all of that crap from the 90’s into a medley and then do an hour of shit that you fuckers actually want to hear! So go take a whiz, grab another brew, because you’ve got 15 minutes for us to get through our self-indulgent crap and get ready for a real show! Yes, I am burning the fuckin’ barstool and promise never to torture you with ‘Nothing Else Matters’ again, and yes, we will finally play ‘Am I Evil?’ in it’s entirety!”

I might even go to see those bastards again if they did something like that. But once again, I digress.

“Reborn” and “Epidemic” were somewhat anticlimactic by now, but still great. At this point I’m still in shock and/or awe. They stopped again after “Epidemic” for Araya to talk to the crowd one last time.

“This is always the saddest part of the night… when we have to say good night and goodbye to everyone…” For us too, Tom. For us, too. “I want to thank you all for coming out again… and we’ll see you again next year…” And we will be back as well. “and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that…” That’s what I like to hear. Count us in. “but now I just have one question for you” Don’t stop now, Tom. There’s only one song that you can play now. “DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!?” The crowd responded with a lot of shouts of “Yeah!” “Hell Yeah!” and “Fuck Yeah!”, which led Araya, in his typical fashion, to ask, “Are you sure about that?”

With that, Lombardo kicked off the opening beats of “Postmortem”, which naturally led into a finale of “Raining Blood”. We tried screaming for one more, but DC being the prissy city that it is, the crowd barely got into it. In fairness to the fans present, Slayer is generally not known for curtain calls anyway. Still, it was a phenomenal show. As I was walking out the conversations I overheard told me that the rest of the crowd was as happy and amazed as I was with how the concert turned out. The element of surprise combined with “Reign in Blood” probably means that Slayer will never give a better performance, at least for me.