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Abyss's Review (11/16/01 Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY):
Talk About a Silent Scream
Anyone attending this show, when asked for their impression, would most likely start out by describing the sound, or lack thereof. Due to technical difficulties we had the rare opportunity to witness Slayer Unplugged. The sound went out after the first couple of songs, and decided not to come back for quite some time. Unfortunately, the band's monitors remained functional, so the band had no idea there was a problem until they started questioning the "Bullshit" chants that soon enveloped them. Apparently, as rumor had it, someone had spilled a beer on the soundboard.
Slayer
Photos by CYNThis event caused me anxiety on two levels: First of all, someone obviously wasted a beer, as I find it hard to believe the soundboard was actually thirsty. Secondly, this clumsiness resulted in a lack of Slayer, one of my favorite bands. I believe this is an example of the Domino Effect that we were fighting in Vietnam. So, not only did I miss a few Slayer songs, I also got irritated that someone would have such low respect for alcohol that they would be lax in their care for it. I mean beer is not only refreshing and intoxicating, but a true art form that deserves our reverence. Anyway, I guess I should get on about the show.
Slayer opened the show with "Disciple" to an energetic crowd. Did you know that the art of brewing beer has been around for centuries? Did you bother to think that what was spilled is a concoction that, in some way or another, has been around since ancient times? Sorry, sorry, I'll drop this right now. It's not your fault-But I mean, Jesus, it's a freakin' beer for Christ's sake! What were you thinking! Do you think that shit grows on trees!?! Do you honestly relieve yourself of all responsibility here!?! You're not supposed to cry over spilled milk, but this is something entirely different! Bow your head in shame!
ChimairaSorry, I'm getting a bit emotional. Anyhoo, the sound eventually returned, but was never really up to snuff. The guitars were mired in the background and an annoying low frequency burp was the bass line's constant companion. Slayer tried to quell the crowd, and were successful, by giving us "Postmortem" into "Raining Blood" right after they resumed playing. The new songs, especially "Disciple" fit well alongside the older material, much better than all but "A Bitter Peace" did on Diabolus.
But let's face it a Slayer show transcends sound quality. To be honest, this was the worst Slayer show I've ever seen, but I still had a ball. The set list was predictable: "Dead Skin Mask", "War Ensamble", "Hell Awaits", "Chemical Warfare", "Seasons in the Abyss", "Mandatory Suicide", "Die By the Sword" and an encore of "South of Heaven" into "Angel of Death". With this band's impressive catalogue, I would like to see them take a lead from the last Megadeth tour, and start a rotating set list. Hell, if they did that, I'd probably quit my job and follow them around the country in a beat up VW van!
American Head Charge
The opening band, American Head Charge, seemed out of place to me, and to most of the people in my general vicinity. I didn't enjoy them at all, but I'm not sure it's their fault. They just aren't the type of band that should be opening for Slayer. Their upbeat version of metalcore seemed out of place. Too hybrid to get one ready for purist Slayer. On previous tours, Slayer had given the slot to Hatebreed, and while I was left a little out of sorts by that choice as well, it made more sense due to Hatebreed's widely respected reputation. Today's band nobody's really heard of. And their appearance was rather comical, which shouldn't matter, but somehow it does. One initially knew things were suspect on the fashion front when the lead singer started the show wearing ski goggles. No not ski goggles customized to look evil, just plain ski goggles. The ones with the tinted lens so that you don't mistake moguls for shadows on the slopes. There's something about having eyewear with "Scott" (or some other brandname) written in big lettering on the stretchy strap that takes me away from the whole metal mindset. The keyboardists (2 of them) also confused me. They rarely seemed to play anything, rather they just slowly dragged the keyboard, stand and all, across the stage. Either that or they were doing an awkward two-step (maybe they should have led). And the one on the left shaved half (yes, only half) of his head, making him look like Ron Howard's brother in some cheesy horror flick. I just didn't get this band.
SlayerAnyway, like I said, this was the worst Slayer show I've ever seen, but I still had a ball. If bad sound, alcohol abuse, lackluster opening acts, and a wicked case of syphilis couldn't wreck this show, then I guess Slayer's a pretty cool band. Tell a friend.
Death's Review (11/16/01 Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY):
It had been a while since I'd seen Slayer perform a full headlining show. The last time was probably sometime in late '98 or early '99, also at Roseland, in support of the Diabolus record with Meshuggah in the support slot. Since then, I'd seen Slayer support Metallica and Slipknot in a one-off combo Tattoo the Earth/Metallica gig at Giants Stadium in the summer of 2000, and-of course-their "co-headlining" slot on the Extreme Steel Tour this past spring/summer, which was essentially an opening act for Pantera. As expected, Slayer had been fun to see these last couple of times, but the band has so many obligatory songs that it isn't even really possible for a shortened set list to hold too many surprises for someone like me, having seen the band perform on almost every U.S. tour they've done since 1986. I love "Angel of Death," "Mandatory Suicide" and "War Ensemble" just as much as the next guy, but deep down I longed to hear a set that included "Hell Awaits," "At Dawn They Sleep," "Altar of Sacrifice," "Postmortem," and "Criminally Insane," and anything from Show No Mercy other than "Black Magic" or "Die By the Sword" (although those two are awesome and neither had made it into the most recent truncated setlists). So I had high hopes for the current tour and the possible candidates for addition into an expanded Slayer-as-headliner setlist. I was psyched.
SlayerAdd to that the fact that I was going to see Slayer in midtown Manhattan on a November Friday night with a bunch of fun friends, a pocketful of beer money, and a week's worth of steam to blow off. Surely, a recipe for a killer Friday night no matter what songs they play. Tonight's lineup consisted of Abyss, Hel, Musashi, Cyn and Ylana. We got there after just before American Head Charge took the stage, and settled in at the quasi-secluded, full back bar (just behind and to the left of the stage), and proceded to throw back several drinks while chatting with friends and psyching ourselves up for Slayer. At some point AHC came on. All I knew about them is that the singer had been arrested for playing naked at the Slipknot show on Halloween. Not a lot to go on (although after having heard that little news item, I'm now glad I didn't get to that show until System of a Down were taking the stage-by the way, another tangent: I think I saw both Charlie Benante (Anthrax, S.O.D.) and members of Immolation at that Slipknot Halloween gig). Anyway, I checked out American Head Charge this night for a song or two, but I really wasn't into it at all. Like Slipknot, AHC are a large band (seven, eight members?), and, although they didn't have costumes, each had his own "identity." Visually, I guess, some people might have been into it, but I was quickly bored, drunk, and hungry for Slayer. I can't imagine opening for Slayer has ever been a particularly easy assignment for anyone, and American Head Charge never met the challenge this night, in my opinion. I went back to the bar and stayed there.
Eventually, Slayer took the stage. The sound, however, was pure shit. Very quickly, it seemed that nothing was coming out of the PA. Slayer played "Disciple," "War Ensemble" (I think) and "New Faith" (you know: "I keep the bible in a pool of blood so that none of its lies can affect me!"), and perhaps "Raining Blood" - I really can't remember for sure. Cool enough songs, but unfortunately we could barely hear any of it except whatever we could discern from the monitor mix. Bad news. Thousands of drunk Slayer fans started to become angry (I'm serious - the band was playing but you could truly almost hear nothing at all), and it felt like a bad scene had the potential to develop. The capacity crowd began chanting "Roseland sucks! Roseland sucks!" Slayer, of course, stopped playing. A few moments went by while everyone tried to figure out what was going on. Eventually, Tom Araya informed us that someone had thrown a beer onto the front-of-house sound board and shorted it out. Wow. That sucks. Where you gonna get a new board suitable for a mini-arena on no notice, I thought. Even in New York.
Chimaira
As for our gang, we all agreed it was a good time to take a piss and grab two or three more beers while they sorted things out. And for the most part, everyone was cool, even though it took a while for the band to get it back together again. The best line of the night came from some random dude in the bathroom, who just shrugged his shoulders and said earnestly, "I guess that's what happens when you put your bible in a pool of blood." I cracked up laughing when he said that.
SlayerWhen they did come back, they were Slayer, and pretty quickly, everything was alright once more. We indeed heard "Postmortem," "Die by the Sword" and the almighty "Hell Awaits." All the usual suspects were also present and accounted for, like the expected one-two closing punch of "South of Heaven" and "Angel of Death," which Abyss pretty much called on cue (ABYSS: "watch, in seconds you'll hear [sings opening notes of "South of Heaven"]; lo and behold, the millisecond he finishes saying that, those same notes beckon from the stage). Fuck it, I thought. I'm jumping in the pit. Seriously, I only did a couple of laps around the circle mosh, but what the fuck, I was drunk, I was sweaty, and I was moshing to Slayer. One of several five skull moments in a three skull night. The opening acts were not the right choices, the sound problems were unbearable at times and the band was often predictable, but they were Slayer and they ruled New York City for several moments this Friday night before a capacity crowd in the heart of Manhattan. I am proud to have been there.
Hel's Review (11/16/01 Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY):
Damn, I hate the Roseland Ballroom! In addition to the usual posers and the fact that I can’t see the stage from basically anywhere in the venue, this night I was given all new reasons to hate it, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.
When I arrived, Chimaira had just left the stage, and my perfect record of consistently missing this band remained intact. Sure, I’ve never heard or seen them, but I despise them all the same for the mere fact that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, seems to feel the need to correct someone who mispronounces the name. At this point, I murder it just so I can complain about everyone’s need to correct me. But I digress.
SlayerAmerican Head Charge was the first band I did see, and my biggest impressions were that: 1) they must be trying to rival Slipknot for “band with most people onstage”; and 2) they need a stylist BAD. There appeared to be 7 people in this band, though they were continually swapping instruments so it was difficult to keep count, and as far as I could tell, most of them had no true contribution to make to the music. Yet, they did not utilize these extraneous characters to add additional visual stimuli, at least the extras in Slipknot prance about and try to be amusing, these guys were just sort of there. Each of them had more ridiculous attire than the last, and I can’t even go there - all I will say is: Mohawks and full-length fingerless fishnet gloves. No, not on the same person… And the music didn’t redeem them either. To me, it sounded just like any other nu-metal 4 piece.
After the inevitable lull, the mighty Slayer took the stage and began to play. Within the first five notes, I turned to a friend and declared, “This soundman needs to be fired immediately!” The sound was coming in and out, there was horrible feedback, and other squeals that certainly did not belong were evident. It was clear that something was wrong. It was also clear that the band had no idea, particularly when the crowd began to boo. Eventually, people started chanting, “We can’t hear you!” and “Roseland sucks!” The latter I contributed to with gusto, having felt this way for a long time prior to these horrific events.
American Head ChargeAfter about 4 miserable songs, the band appeared to have understood, and things were rigged so that we could actually hear Tom for the first time. He advised us that some moron had spilled a beer on the soundboard. Under any other circumstances, this would have been the end of the show, but not when Slayer is in charge. Tom requested our patience, and after a much shorter interval than I expected, they returned to the stage.
From that moment on, the band played only their classics. While other acts would have forged ahead with the same set, or cut old songs to play new ones, Slayer knew their audience better than that. The sound was never good, but after the way the set began, it no longer mattered - any sound was better than none!
I still could not see the stage, and eventually we made our way toward the front, to gain a better perspective. Usually, I would have protested such a thing, having learned a very long time ago that small people such as myself have no business being near the pit, and that the pit was always in the center in front of the stage. Slayer, however, is the exception in this case as well. Early in the evening, during AHC, I believe, I was in the Ladies’ Room with many ridiculous poser women (a tip: stiletto heels and pocketbooks have no place at a Slayer show), and I overheard one of them say, “She wants to go into the pit, I can’t believe she’s so crazy, I’m not going near there!” And I thought to myself, “You’re at a Slayer show, idiot! At a Slayer show, you don’t go to the pit, the pit comes to you.”
SlayerAs it has always been, and as it will always be, small pits erupted in every conceivable place you could stand, everywhere in the venue, the moment they took the stage. So moving up to the front, was just like standing in the back, except I could actually see the band! Another tidbit that I learned long ago is that the edge of the pit is often the best place to see from, so I am no stranger to standing there. It was great to be able to see the boys once again and, sound problems aside, they played a great set - as I have come to expect them to.
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