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After flew 1,000 km and - thanks to the closing of the airport - I missed first Slayer’s gig at 1st Sep. 2006. I arrived at São Paulo during the show. Well, Saturday afternoon, better make a visit at the Galeria do Rock (Gallery of Rock) to search for some CD rarities and catch some impressions about the show of the previous night.
The comments, by the way, were not the best ones. The show had been very short (1h 10 min) and the most frightful thing; the drummer did not even seems to be Dave Lombardo due the bad perfomance of the songs. Well, I became very apprehensive about what would happens this night.
When I arrived at the neighborhood of the venue it was possible to see some maniacs screaming SLAAAYYEER, while a crowd of black shirts was dragging to the venue.
Before of the marked schedule (22:00) the opening band - the Brazilian Ungodly -, began their show with their traditional Death metal and with a large backdrop - as big as Slayers stage setting . Nice surprise. Changing the tradition Slayer liberated the sound volume and the light set, so the local band could made a good presentation. And they did!
After the first nice surprise of the night I changed positioning to see better the supposed rogue of the day - old Dave! Weird drum kit! Black toms, red kick drums. Someone near me said that he couldn't bring his equipment and the local promoters had to set up a drum kit for him - parts taken off several drum kits. A heresy, being a matter of a drum legend.
The change over was very quick, specially for shows in Brazil and before I finish my beer, lights went out and the damn immense Christ of the layer of Christ Illusion arises behind the stage for the delirium of a completely filled house. The recording of Darkness Of Christ echoed remembering me of the classical DVD War At Warfield. Just as the preannounce for Disciple explodes with the four apocalypse horsemen playing it’s soundtrack. The members of the band were frightened (not really), such the volume of the shouts "GOD HATES YOU ALL". Araya smiled about that with his traditional irony and announced screaming War Ensemble making the Via Funchal - usual place for romantic shows - look like hell. While a big mosh pit opened many others just stand there watching petrified the massacre.
Time for some classics: At Dawn They Sleep, Die By The Sword (if you live by the swoooord....) and the unexpected Spirit In Black. Sound quality??? More or less good. Venue’s guilt? Probably, cause Slayer usually have a devastating and perfect live sound on their gigs.
The show went on with Cult, the only song of the excellent new album of the band. More music of this CD would be coming, but stay cool, time for more classics! That was what everybody desired (I would love Iron Maiden would did something like that in their shows). God Send Death and the classics Mandatory Suicide and Seasons In The Abyss lead some evil faced guys to tears.
Hey, what about Dave? Well, in some fast song parts he did play slower and did not acted like that young man of years ago - someone mentioned Bostaph???. But the pulse was perfect and the drum basses were very, very fast. We have to understand something: he is a 40 year old guy playing in Slayer, not in a hard rock band and with his good taste and creativity he makes great and interesting new things for the parts that his body can’t do anymore. Period!
Chemical Warfare and Hell Awaits continued the slaughtering. The seriousness of the band sometimes disturbs a little the Brazilians that always expect lots of stage talk and "thank you". Araya smiles, King and Hanneman recognize with their eyes that this is not a crowd like any other. Lombardo - perfect - at the end of that songs arised from the drum kit and point the drum sticks to the sky as to say "Someone have any doubts about me???"quot; At the end of Postmortem he made a joke and started to make the famous drum intro for Raining Blood - like in the 1986’s classic album. But it’s just a trick. Silent Screen continues the concert. Dead Skin Mask - sung by the crowd - and Raining Blood finished the party. Followed by the predictable encores South Of Heaven and Angel Of Death with an especially long drum bass part from Mr. Lombardo!!!
A great show - like almost all the Slayer gigs - despite of some sound problems. Everybody in ecstasy and returned to their homes after 1h 30min - yes, a longer show. As regards the people who did not attend Friday nights gig: Stryper just played in São Paulo, have you been there??? Get a life!!!!
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