Slayer’s Return Was As Epic As You’d Expect

After completing their longrwinding Farewell Tour in 2019, the thrash metal legends Slayer have just performed their first show in five years at Chicago’s Riot Fest. Members Kerry King, Gary Holt, Tom Araya, and Paul Bostaph took the stage to deliver their headlining performance at the festival last night, which saw the band’s quintessential satanic backdrops, pyromania, and riveting thrash hits.

Opening the night’s festivities with “South Of Heaven,” Slayer’s setlist indulged in the celebration of their legacy as expected, with hits from nearly every fan favorited Slayer record making their way into the 20 song set. See Slayer’s setlist from Riot Fest below:

“Delusions of Saviour”

“South of Heaven”

“Reborn”

“Blood Red”

“Postmortem”

“Repentless”

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“Payback”

“Temptation”

“Jihad”

“Seasons in the Abyss”

“Born of Fire”

“War Ensemble”

“Hate Worldwide”

“Disciple”

“Dead Skin Mask”

“Hell Awaits”

“213”

“Mandatory Suicide”

“Raining Blood”

“Black Magic”

“Angel of Death”

1990’s Seasons In The Abyss was the album of choice last night with six tracks from the record making their way into the set, in addition to other famous hits from the band’s seminal masterpiece Reign In Blood. While the setlist was certainly topnotch, Slayer’s performance looks as if they’d never retired in the first place — the band powered through with cohesion and Tom Araya’s vocals sounded as menacing as hearing “Angel of Death” for the first time. It’s great to see Slayer back and doing what they do best which is commanding circle pits, inspiring ‘Slayer chants,’ and delivering over 90 minutes thrilling thrash metal.

However, as great as it might be to have the trash titans back, Slayer’s own Kerry King has reassured that these Slayer reunion shows don’t mean the band will be touring or recording new music again. “It's not going to translate into recording, and it's not going to translate into touring. For me, it's three shows marking five years since our final shows, a fun, 'Hey, remember us from before the pandemic?' celebration,” King stated.

King’s remarks certainly make it seem like Slayer doesn’t have any larger plans on the horizon, however, time will only tell what Slayer decide to do down the road. The mere fact the band has returned in the first place makes any promises far more questionable, and with other legacy bands like Pantera having turned their reunion celebration into a massive and successful world tour, who’s to say Slayer won’t do the same in the coming years? Better yet, there’s likely a future in which these two resurrected bands play a bill together at some point, whether at a festival or a full scale co-headlining tour.

While these reunions have their place and they reignite a unique kind of excitement in the scene, metal has seemingly become less capable of evolving in recent years. There are a plethora of reasons one can point, but the scene’s over reliance on nostalgia and support for legacy bands has to be one of the primary reasons. In other words, acts like Pantera and Slayer are now first in line again for headlining opportunities over newer and prominent younger bands that are making waves in the scene, namely bands like Gojira, Bad Omens, Ghost, Sleep Token, etc. There’s no doubt, never in the metal scene’s history has there been such a slim number of new bands that have gotten festival headlining opportunities than now.