Being the first leg of the American Carnage Tour this half features
Testament as the opening act, while they will be replaced with Anthrax for the last half. Starting punctually at 7pm, Testament delivered a incredible 40 minute set to a somewhat empty crowd. Granted by the end of their set the seats were filling up, but
attendance-wise the start was slow. And let me emphasize that this only is attendance-wise. No matter if Testament are playing to 10 people or ten thousand people, they always seem to give it their heart. They opened with "More Than Meets The Eye" (following it's musical intro song, "For The Glory Of") the single off of their latest album
From Formation to Damnation. Sprinkling some new song in between older standards they easily proved throughout the set that the new material stands up to older classics like "The New Order" and "Trial By Fire".
Up next were my personal favorites,
Megadeth. Even for those who aren't total bitches for Megadeth like myself, the band still caught every one's attention due to two major factors of tonight's set - the band performed classic album
Rust In Peace in it's entirety and featured Dave Ellefson back on bass. There was essentially NO banter from
Holy Wars... The Punishment Due to
Rust In Peace... Polaris when
my angel Dave Mustaine declared "So, that was Rust In Peace!". The continuity of set made the show surreal, but sound problems during the first few songs did set things off to shakier start. Nothing tragic like mics or speakers blowing, but the sound wasn't crisp and the vocals were hidden for the first few tracks. By the encore the sound guy had gotten his shit together and the band came back with a nice mix of new and old including "Trust", "Headcrusher", "A Tout Le Monde", "Symphony Of Destruction", and "Peace Sells" in that order.
Closing the night out Slayer hit the stage to a roaring crowd with "World Painted Blood" and "Hate Worldwide and then proceeded on with the entire Seasons In The Abyss album straight through. Technically, the sounded great. Dave always kills it behind the kit, Kerry King did his Kerry-king-headbanging-neckthrashing-thing, and Jeff guitar flopped happily over his growing Buddha belly. The only difference really was Tom Araya's stage presence, which was a lot stiff and more controller than usual due to his recent back surgery. No surprises here though. They followed formula with Megadeth and ended with a encore of classics and new old. Even though Megadeth are my easily my favorites on the bill, Slayer took the night for me.
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