”I want to welcome you to our church – because of you I am healed!”

Thus spoke frontman Tom Araya, although the exact nature of his healing was never revealed.
Certainly, the music began straight in-your-face and hard with the title track of the latest album, World Painted Blood, and from there on out we were in for the musical death-ride one has come to expect from Slayer.
As a stark contrast to the wildness of the music stood the bands performance however, as it was both lazy and un-engaging. One might almost go as far as saying the artists were placed in their respective places, where they chose to remain throughout the concert! In honesty, they did move about, but the number of times they did so could be counted on the fingers of one hand with digits to spare. For some reason, they were just not making an effort…
This behaviour was repaid by the large crowd, as some began throwing bottles up on the stage. Araya commented it was a drinking problem to buy beer only to throw it away, which led me to believe that he obviously hadn’t tried the official festival beer Sofiero...

It wasn’t all bad though; Slayer has an extensive back-catalogue of great thrash songs, and as the gig stretched on we were given both newer additions as well as an almost complete selection of their classics. A personal favourite of mine, which I had not expected, Expendable Youth was executed with precision and conviction, whereas such a classic as Dead Skin Mask was sorely missed in its absence...
The ending trilogy with Raining Blood, South Of Heaven and Angel Of Death was surely enough to make every old thrash-head cry tears of joy as they bashed into each other in the wild throng which the audience had finally turned into.

It is hard to decide what exactly to make of this show.
The performance, or rather lack thereof, by the band surely did nothing good for anyone, but on the other hand most of the tracks are of such a high quality they can certainly stand on their own, which they were also forced to do. But they proved worthy of the responsibility, and lifted the show as much as they could.
Finally, ending the review on an uncharacteristically bad note, someone deserves a severe kick in the nuts for the extremely bad sound for this show!

Setlist (incomplete):

World Painted Blood
Cult
Disciple
War Ensemble
Expendable Youth
Seasons In The Abyss
Mandatory Suicide
Raining Blood
South Of Heaven
Angel Of Death