) last night and saw Slayer's final (air quotes perhaps implied?) show. Ramblings commencing now.Place was PACKED. Like ridiculously so. I was glad to see people out in droves for this show. I would say it was teetering close to capacity. Which was cool to see.
Phil and the Illegals were first. Doing a set of Pantera covers. Oddly enough; this was the band I had the most emotional reaction to the entire night and I am not sure why? Phil didn't pander as far as playing the Pantera never reconciled sympathy card. So not sure what it was. But the band was good. Emulating what Dime and Vinnie did is not near as easy as anyone might think. And they pulled it off for the most part with ease. Only thing that might be a little lacking if anything was the soloing. The guys were hitting the notes and bits they needed to; but even my on/off jaded against Pantera at times a$$ knows you can't f**k with Dime
Ministry was next. I was actually looking forward to them the most. They played basically their greatest "hits" from the Land of R@pe and Honey through Psalm 69. While I love this era on record (and I even dig Revenge
); they fell strangely flat to me. It was cool; don't get me wrong. But the one dimensional jackhammer thing was pretty limited in appeal after about 4,5 songs.Up next , Primus. Trippy, jammy while playing stuff from a decent swath of their catalog. Visual treat and in my mind; like what Tool would be like live if they wrote songs I liked and I didn't absolutely loathe them
Excellent rhythm section. LaLonde for me is the absolute weak link. Good player. I think. But most of his guitar lines sound designed to be as irritating as possible. So they live and die on the drum and bass grooves. Only complaint I have with them in this setting was they didn't play Tommy the Cat or Winona. I get it as they probably wanted to appear "cerebral" since they wouldn't be competing in the heaviness category. But those songs would have killed this audience. Play the "hits" FFS, even if they are a novelety. Would have went over gangbusters with the crowd on hand 
Good performance though, and much better than I expected.Slayer. Ahhh. Slayer is Slayer. If you know them; you know them.
Random complaints:
1. Kerry King, despite what he thinks; is not the only person in the band. Since Gary Holt can wipe the floor with him in his sleep on pretty much every front; maybe you could, you know; allow him some room in the f**king mix?
2. Kerry King's bro-lift-vape-tribal-half-pint thing is beyond old.
3. Kerry King (and Slayer in general) tuned down drives me nuts. Kings tone in B or C# sounds like absolute edgeless bloated a$$hole. I LOATHE this era pretty much universally and to say I hate King's tone tuned down is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge understatment. The worst sort of fat-ness you could ever imagine
Other than that
they were very good. Araya did great and I was surprised to see Bostaph keeping up. He is a tech wizard to me, but for Forbidden and not Slayer. There's only one Lombardo, bro He got a little off time and clunky in spots; but did the material justice. First 1/3 was heavy on the "newer" material. Then a little shift into drop tuned crap then a bigggggggggggggg glut of the old school. Stage show was excellent. Great light show and the fire. THE FIRE We headed out a smidge early before the last song (Angel of Death) because it wasn't Lombardo and because 20000 people leaving a single parking lot. Made great time getting home too
Cool little side note: Jack Owens (Cannibal Corpse/Deicide) was for some reason at this show. He did an in store at a local record shop that I missed but I saw him walking through the food and vendor area and stalked him out for a second. My wife was like "why are you introducing yourself to this regular dude in the beer line?"
They did Seasons, which for me is in the same vein. And with my preferred drummer 