Slayer Look Back on First Show and Tour in New Video
Imagine being in the crowd at Slayer's first show.
Before dominating the globe with Hell-ordained thrash, Slayer were an unassuming foursome doing their best to put their spin on their favorite Venom and Judas Priest records — and they borrowed the image too. In the latest video installment of Slayer's look back on their career, Kerry King and Tom Araya reflect on the band's first show and tour and we get a good look at their early stagewear, complete with studded leather armbands, spikes and, yes, that infamous eye makeup.
"The first time with Slayer, I'd probably played 10 gigs or less in my life," recalls King as footage that highlights the band's earliest antics, like an inverted cross of a lighting fixture that would flash during the set, plays. "I think the very first show we did, we used homemade fire pods. After this experience, we experimented with different tapes to cover the cans, but these cans exploded," laughs Araya.
While the two Slayer icons remember their first tour, we see the show flyers for bills like "Slayer, Exodus, Possessed, Vermin" and "Venom, Slayer, Exodus." "We slept in basements, we slept in storage rooms — I have no idea how we survived these trips," says Araya, who then elaborated on the pre-show and post-show drinking.
Slayer's farewell run kicks off on May 10 with a powerful lineup featuring Lamb of God, Behemoth, Anthrax, and Testament. The second leg, which finds Behemoth dropping off and Napalm Death assuming the vacant slot, concludes at the end of August and the list of stops where you can scream "SLAAAYERRRRR" one last time can be seen here.
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