Slayer was headlining Mystic festival , the other bands on the bill were Celtic Frost, Behemoth and other lesser known bands.

I entered the venue when Behemoth was finishing up their set, the band is playing Ozzfest this year and will have a new album out in July, I got to see only 3 songs by these guys, they were pretty impressive and full of energy. The next band was Celtic Frost , the legend is back and touring, their show as alright, nothing special, the sound was a bit shitty in the beginning then it got better.

Finally the last band, the almighty Slayer!!! They are about 20 minutes late, there seems to be a problem with the sound , they are having a sound check before the show? Pretty strange, normally the sound check takes palace ahead of time, during the day in fact. They were supposed to start playing at 9 pm, they finally started at 9:25.

First song. Darkness of Christ/God hates us All, I thought they will start with Hell Awaits, like in good ‘ol days, yet Darkness of Christ /God hates us all is good enough. Well, the only thing is the sound, it is terrible, the music is one big mess, you cant hear guitars , it is one big noise. I have seen Slayer many times, the first time was on Seasons in the Abyss back in 1990 and Slayer was always the ultimate Heavy/Trash/Punk machine with sharp excellent sound, with one exception at the Wacken Festival in 2003.

The sound was changing but it was still pretty bad, the next song was War Ensemble, heavy and fast , Slayer classic, again the sound was not getting any better, pretyyu annoying especially when you are used to Slayer’s sound being pretty sharp and merciless!

The whole show the sound kept on going in different directions, there were time when the sound was almost good but something happened again and again and it was not really improving, what a pity!

The song selection was awesome, Die by the Sword, Show no Mercy- I do not recall hearing it live before, or maybe it was a while back, from the new album they played Jihad – my favorite song on the album , yet again, the sound sucked big time, you could not even recognize this song, it was one big pile of noise, the other song off the new album was Cult, again, due to the sound problems the song did not come across as good as it should have.

I really wanted to hear Silent Scream, one of my favorites , and they played it, it is an excellent song , so many band, including vader, have re-recorded this masterpiece. Capture of Sin was also included in the set, the other songs were South of Heaven, Mandatory Suicide – dedicated to our troops of misfortune, Dead Skin Mask, Seasons in the Abyss .

I have listened to Slayer since 1985, I know every drum bit and every note of most of their songs , especially from Show no Mercy to Seasons in the Abyss , I was under the impression that today Dave Lombardo was late on a few occasions , in some song he would improvise like in Die by the Sword and Show no Mercy, which was great, in some it seemed like the guys are not really playing together, maybe due to the sound problems they were not able to hear each other?

The other strange thing to see was breaks between 2-3 songs which was unheard of while back, I remember show where there were no breaks, just 2 hours of brutal Metal. That’s what Slayer is all about , no talk just music, I one wants listen to talking between songs go see Mettalica! I want and most of the Slayer freaks want pure mayhem and no talk!!!! Pretty bizarre show if you ask me. Are the guys getting older ? On many occasions Tom was letting the audience “ sing along” except he was not singing at all, sing along? What?????? Slayer and sing along???? No way!!!!!!!

The show ended with Angel of Death, the whole concert lasted an hour and twenty minutes, not good enough for Slayer. I guess they were tired, once they left the stage I was hoping they would come back and play Hell Awaits, well , they never came back.

Pretty disappointing.