The 013 in Tilburg has been a venue were a lot of my favorite shows took place. But since the venue is already 15 years old it needed some refurbishment. But why do some refurbishment when you can rebuild the entire place and add another 1000 visitors to the great hall of the venue. To cut a long story short. The place has been closed for 6 months now. It reduced the amount of halls from 3 to 2 but upgraded both halls with capacity. Since the real opening of the venue is still weeks away there are several testcases to see if the venue is indeed improved. The first serious one was this evening. Three thousand Slayer fans, who are probably the most uncompromising metalheads present, are ready to give their judgment and see if the new improved 013 is capable of handling them. 

Kvelertak
Opening act of the night Kvelertak hails from Stavanger, Norway, and have been buzzing around in the scene for the past couple of years. Their 2010 self titled debut was in many year lists and the band showed big potential to be the next big band. Unfortunately, it did not work out for them and this did also not happen with their second full length Meir. Tonight’s show follows that same path as technical issues and poor sound quality cause the show to not work on the audience.. During the first couple of songs the band is struggling with sound issues which forces the band to restart a song and the Slayer fans are not giving the response the band does deserve. Songs like ‘Blodtørst’, ‘Ulvetid’ and ‘Mjød’ are true masterpieces and it makes most metal heads bounce along. And the occasional ugh shouted by front man Erlend Hjelvik and the amazing guitar parts still puts this band on my list of best post 2000 bands. Can’t wait to see them again in a smaller venue.
 

Anthrax
After the bit disappointing performance of Kvelertak it was Anthrax that got the party really started. Being one of the big four supporting the other one from the big four is was an easy task for Anthrax to do so. You could almost say it was a rather up hill task for Kvelertak being from a complete different era. Since it was the first day of the European leg of the Repentless tour everyone was still fresh and excited. Joey Belladonna and his fellow band members were clearly having fun onstage. Constantly seeking contact with the audience while running around onstage en still giving a tight performance. This only contributes to the vibe that’s present during the show. Minor detail is the least amount of own songs during the set. In total 10 songs but with 3 covers songs. ‘Got The Time’ (Joe Jackson), ‘March Of The S.O.D’ (S.O.D)  and ‘Antisocial’ (Trust). Sad since they do have so much own material that would be nice to hear. 
 

Slayer
The US leg of the tour counted 20 songs in total. So this means we’re up for a treat. Over an hour and a half of Slayer. I could easily think of a list of things that are far worse than this. Starting with an intro tape of their latest album followed by the title track of the album the venue exploded. After several liters of beer, two support acts and several toilet lines later it was finally time for the band we are all here to see. With a setlist that was a nice cross-section of their entire career we embarked on a journey to time. As the audience clearly enjoyed singing along to every classic the time flew by and with the last tones of ‘Angel Of Death’, Tom thanked us for our time. You could almost call it Slayer 2.0 with Paul Bostaph and Gary Holt being in the band. But after this club show I can say that I’m convinced that this was probably the best option for this band. You can talk shit about Kerry what you want but the fact is he kept Slayer running after all these years. Maybe not in the best way, but he did. 

After a night of hordes of Slayer fans the 013 could make up the scores. The toilets at the right entrance of the venue are certainly a big plus although they were a bit small. The new entrance is very practical with a lot of lockers and token machines. The smoking room in the hall was probably to small or you could say that the amount of smokers amongst Slayer fans are above average. Although there are some minor details that are probably fixed in the next couple of weeks I can only say that the staff of 013 is to be thanked for the good effort they made. Being present on strategic places and instructing the visitors.

Photo by William van der Voort