One of the most important bands in thrash metal history is touring (supposedly) for the last time. For this farewell tour, Slayer invited honourable and extremely strong guests: Anthrax, Lamb of God and Obituary. On the 3rd of December they visited their Copenhagen’s metal fans at Royal Arena. The event was organised by Live Nation Denmark.
The evening started quite early, with the first band hitting the stage already at 18:30. Despite this early start the venue was almost filled, but also expected as no one would like to miss an Obituary show. The band entered the stage filled with clouds of smoke and green light, a characteristic stage set up for Obituary. John Tardy and the band presented 7 songs set including ‘I’m in Pain’, ‘A Lesson in Vengeance’ and a magnificent show closure with ‘Slowly We Rot’. The band provided an extremely powerful set preparing the audience for an intensive evening.
Next in line was the member of Thrash Metal Big 4 – the almighty Anthrax. Their show setlist was simply amazing, a mix of their greatest hits, with no compromises and a lot of positive energy. They started with ‘Caught in a Mosh’ and smoothly moved into ‘Got the Time’. Joey Belladonna was doing everything he could to entertain the crowd and together with Scott Ian they were all over the stage – running and jumping like teenagers. The full set was closed with two hit songs, ‘Antisocial’ and ‘Indians’, with the fans singing along on the chorus sections. This performance suffered a bit due to the poor sound quality (high tones were too high), nonetheless this was still one of the best performances of the night.
After a great entertainment provided by Anthrax it was time for the heavy side of thrash brought by Lamb of God. The show started with ‘Omertà’, where Chris Adler drums were as fast as a machine gun was accompanied by the harsh voice of Randy Blythe. The vocalist kept running and jumping around, displaying as much energy as a “Duracell rabbit”. The show continued with ‘Ruin’, that ignited the crowd located closer to the stage to slowly transform into a huge mosh pit. This brutal energy was maintained throughout the whole set which was closed with ‘Redneck’, one of the biggest Lamb of God hits. They had more time and stage space than the two previous acts, and the whole performance was very nice yet the whole show was a bit monotonous.
At 21:30 it was finally time for the main act of the evening. Slayer started with ‘Repentless’ a hit song from their last record. The metal carnage continued, and the band led by Tom Araya was not planning to take any prisoners. Song after song, Slayer delivered small doses of thrash metal and all the big Slayer hits. The fans were served with 18 songs divided into main set and encore that included ‘Season in the Abyss’, ‘Hell Awaits’. The whole gig was closed with an ‘Angel of Death’. Even though this was announced as the final tour, Slayer proved to be in very good shape. Other bands tried to leave the scene only to come back after few years in the hiatus. There was only one missing element – Gary Holt – who was replaced by other metal veteran Phil Demmel (ex-Machine Head). Phil managed to handle the whole show very well taking into consideration that he joined the band just a day before and it was his first show played with the band. The whole show was closed with Slayer honoring the memory of Jeff Hanneman.
Interesting fact – Royal Arena is located at Hannemanns Allé. After Slayer last track all members took some time to thank the fans with a huge Hanneman logo posted in the back of the stage. That was the end of this nice and heavy evening, and supposedly the last Slayer show in Denmark. If this was the ‘real good bye ’, Slayer made it with class.
Special thanks to Live Nation Denmark for the chance to review this event.
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