GIG: Slayer (Birmingham Arena)

Arenas suck, and that's all there is to it. But some bands can only be seen in Arenas, and since this is Slayer's final tour (and since we hadn't seen them since 1998) we thought we'd risk it...

The journey was horrendous, it took us 2.3/4hrs to get from home to the car park, which meant we missed almost all of Obituary's set (what a great start) arriving to hear the dying strains of one track and the final song 'Slowly We Rot'.... GRRR!

Walking into the Arena from the back it struck us both just how ridiculously big the place is, perhaps because we haven't been to an Arena gig since about 2010 and also because we've gotten used to seeing bands in small intimate settings - it just seemed HUGE!

We ended up down the front but right to the side, which gave us a good sideways view of the stage but put us right in front of the hanging speakers - so a rather abrasive sound. Anthrax were up next and they came on to an intro tape of 'Number of the Beast' and then hit the stage playing 'Cowboys from Hell'... which segued into 'Caught in a Mosh'. One thing about Anthrax is that Joey Belladonna can still sing, but he still looks like a total outcast in that band, overall it was... okay. Maybe Anthrax's music isn't dating as well as some bands of that era, I thought they would play 'Fight Em til You Can't' but instead we got two covers (Got the Time & Antisocial) in a seven song set.

Lamb of God were up next and they were just boring, frankly. A classic case of a band being so focused on being heavy and forgetting to right any decent songs. Not to mention every song seemed to carry the same mid-tempo pace.... we watched a good half an hour and then started the long trek back to the toilets (beat the rush!).

Arena shows suck, but at least Slayer spared no expense with the backdrops and the fire - so much fire, it was like seeing Rammstein all over again! Indeed, if we'd actually been able to see the band this could have been a top three gig of the year, but instead we merely caught glimpses of them when the crowd and the curvature of the Earth allowed it.

Still, from our vantage point near the sound-desk we finally got to enjoy perfect sound and the set-list was excellent (save for a trio of newer songs in the middle which really sapped the energy temporarily). Highlight for me was 'Chemical Warfare', which was sandwiched between the obvious encore standards 'Raining Blood' and 'Angel of Death'.

It was twenty years in the making and Slayer delivered a great show, but almost nothing would tempt me to an arena show again, and certainly not this one.