AMERICAN CARNAGE: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE (TRUE HEADLINER)

So I feel like we’ve been talking about this Slayer/Megadeth tour FOR-EV-ER, and last night I finally got to see it. And despite my usual cynical instincts telling me that it might very well end up being a major disappointment, I gotta say… I had a really, really fun time.

Testament were great. That’s not really a surprise or anything — Testament have been great, Testament will be great, and if all else failed, I never really doubted for a second that they’d put on a killer show. If I don’t have much else to say about them, it’s because there was never really any suspense with regards to whether or not they’d be good. (But be advised: they went on shortly before 7 pm, so get to the venue early to make sure you don’t miss ’em. There were far too many people not yet at the venue when they played, which was a damn shame.)

Megadeth… well, there’s really only one problem with Megadeth: Mustaine’s voice sucks. Like, at a James Hetfield level of suckitude — actually, he might sound worse than Hetfield, who can at least stay on-key or close-enough for 60% of the time. (Mustaine was almost on-key during an encore of “A Tout Le Monde,” and that was about it.) I seriously had to tune out Mustaine’s voice just to enjoy the music. He can still play guitar like nobody’s business, it’s great to have Ellefson back, and if we’re not gonna have Marty Friedman and Nick Menza in the band, than Shawn Drover and Chris Broderick are about as good as it’s gonna get, replacement-wise. But Mustaine’s vocals… it’s just embarrassing, man.

And then there was Slayer.

I know that technically Slayer are co-headliners with Megadeth, but, really, they’re not. Last night, I saw Megadeth act as direct support for Slayer. They KILLED. Their sound was 110% better than Megadeth’s — “louder and cleaner,” as a friend eloquently stated it — which certainly helped their cause. Their light show was definitely superior, which shouldn’t matter but ultimately does. Araya can’t headbang anymore — sometimes it seems as though he can barely move anymore — but I swear to Satan, King and Hanneman have started moving more to make up for it. I mean, they’re not running around the stage or anything, but several times King actually walked over to Hanneman, or Hanneman moved over to Lombardo, or King actually looked out at the crowd and sang along with the song, and at one point I could have sworn I saw him do a little shoulder shimmy. I repeat: Kerry King moved his fucking shoulder during a performance. Remember when these dudes seemed like they were paralyzed from the neck down — they’d headbang and little else? By Slayer standards, King and Hanneman not just planting their feet and growing roots deep into the stage is progress.

Slayer even did a better job of structuring their set than Megadeth did. Megadeth came out, broke into Rust in Peace right away, played it all the way through, then did a greatest hits collection for the encore, consisting of “Trust” (which I’m convinced was selected because it gives Dave “OHMYFUCKINGGODIAMSOHAPPYTOPLAYINGINFRONTOFPEOPLEAGAIN” Ellefson a chance to step out into the spotlight), the aforementioned “A Tout Le Monde,” the obligatory Endgame-promoter “Head Crusher” (complete with Mustaine bitching “You probably haven’t heard this on the radio”), “Symphony of Destruction,” and — duh — “Peace Sells.” But all of those songs, save for “Peace,” seemed anti-climactic following Rust. I mean, after we’ve heard “Lucretia,” are we really supposed to give a shit about a track from Cryptic Writings?

Slayer, on the other hand, got their necessary bid to promote their latest out of the way immediately, opening with “World Painted Blood” and “Hate Worldwide,” which ostensibly acted as a warm-up for their own show. Then they did Seasons in the Abyss in its entirety, which, needless to say, was incredible. Then they played their own version of a greatest hits encore, except they wisely stayed away from potentially controversial, divisive albums/singles (e.g., God Hates Us All, Christ Illusion, etc.) and stuck to the basics: “South of Heaven,” “Raining Blood,” and “Angel of Death.” No one was gonna question the decision to play those three songs — if you’re Slayer and you’ve only got X amount of time left in your set, and you just played what is arguably your strongest album from start to finish, well, those are almost the only three songs you can follow-up with, y’know?

So, yeah, Slayer pretty much, uh, slayed Megadeth, but guess what? Megadeth were still a lot of fun, Testament were terrific, and this tour ended up being worth all the months and months of bullshit. If you were ever a fan of these bands and you skip this trek, well, go slam your foot in a door, you dope.

And now I leave you with Slayer doing “Dead Skin Mask” on Jimmy Fallon earlier this week.

-AR