The venue is not halfway full of people at eight o’clock. The four French dudes of Gojira don’t care; they just unleash their fuckin’ tight music over the audience. The more crowded it gets the better the sound is evolving over the metal heads. Still playing shows in the stream of their great latest album L’Enfant Sauvage the brothers Duplantier and co nail you to the ground with their complex yet catchy mixture of Death Metal and forward thinking Metal. Imagine the riffs of Morbid Angel woven into the complex chaos of Meshuggah and add a dose of melodies to keep the songs interesting. The band shows tonight they not only have grown in the studio. Easy as it goes with French arrogance they simply impress the audience that’s full of Slayer fans (with a good portion of Gojira fans too). With older, newer songs and the promise a new album will be recorded soon the four horsemen prove to be the European extreme metal answer of the future for a bigger audience. (Maurosis)
 

With the performance of Fortarock and Graspop fresh in the back of my mind, I knew it could go either way tonight with Slayer. The show over a month ago at Fortarock didn’t impress me at all but their performance last Friday at Graspop was the exact opposite of that. Entering the venue I noticed that the normal metalheads were completely outnumbered by hordes of Slayer fans. You know the guys in the end of their thirties or in the beginning of their forties? Slightly overweighed and with a grey Slayer shirt on that once was black? Well those type of guys.

After the show of Gojira I decided to move closer to the bar to grab a beer. It was at that point that my night took a rather unexpected turn of event. At the bar a guy started a conversation with me about how stoked he was to see Slayer again. I responded that I was rather skeptical since because of their performance at Fortarock and of course the fact that it’s only 50% of Slayer. The guy immediately slapped me in the back of the head and pointed it’s finger at me “Don’t You EVER Say That Again!” “Of course we all mourn over Jeff and we truly love to see Dave onstage but, it’s still Slayer.” The guy started a whole monologue as the band walked onstage and started ‘Hell Awaits’ immediately followed by ‘The Antichrist’. During this monologue he pointed out to me that Slayer is more than just a band onstage playing their hit songs. “It’s a moment of peace, moments were the entire world could crumble and no one in the venue could care.” “It’s also a band that you wear with pride. When you see a fellow Slayer fan you nod to each other. It’s way more than just a band and a beer. It’s a way of life that helps you escape your everyday life, from your nagging wife, annoying kids and shitty ass work.” “Well, if you look at it that way. Why don’t you quit your job and leave your wife?” SMACK! Damn another slap in the head. “You dumb idiot you don’t understand it.” “I love my wife, I love my kids and my boss is rather OK.” “But for every one present here Slayer represents a good time with friends.” “It’s that one time a year that your wife leaves you alone you can get completely drunk and she doesn’t even care. ” It was at that point that I realized that he did have rather a good point there. Along the conversation Slayer did decided to throw in some nice old tunes like ‘Necrophilliac’, ‘Captor Of Sin’, ‘Mandatory Suicide’ just to add some extra power to the conversation. As he pointed out a completely wasted guy he told me “Although he is completely wasted, he’s exactly where he wanted to be in the exact state.” Right at that moment Tom Araya started the intro of ‘Dead Skin Mask’ and hundreds hands are immediately raised to the sky, including one hand from the drunk guy. Followed by ‘Raining Blood’ which means the end of the show is in sight. “For us is Slayer a night to forget your daily issues, get drunk among friends and have a good time. We don’t care what other people think of us, if you don’t like us. It’s your problem. It’s that simple”. With that last line the conversation ended and so did the show of Slayer. With ‘South Of Heaven’ and “Angel Of Death” (of course with the Hanneman backdrop) in their encore the band showed all the Slayer fans present that although they are still here for quite some years they still know how to throw a descent party to forget your everyday life. (Niamen)