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Rating: Armed with some electronic gadgets to capture the event, I arrive in front of the gates of the Mazda Palace two hours early, convinced I’ll get a spot right under the stage... Good night, there’s already a crowd of metalheads (probably some there from the night before), oh well. With punctuality more English than Italian, they open the arena’s doors at 4:10, and, like an assault on a fortress, the roaring crowd rushes inside. I secure myself a seat on the side stands (yes, not very metal, but I really don’t feel like being in the chaos for 7 hours), and wait for the first of the day, Thine Eyes Bleed. As a matter of fact, I have the feeling this band is there thanks to a very well-known phenomenon here with us, since their bassist is - what a coincidence - the brother of the Slayer’s front-man. It all makes sense now. Whatever, the music starts, but the audio immediately shows the awful quality it will have for -almost- the whole evening: muffled sounds and drums way too prominent (especially the bass drum), to the point I wondered, "How do the musicians understand each other?". Oh well, after half an hour of frankly banal death pieces, these guys finally get off stage and make way for the Lamb of God.
Ooh, now we’re talking! BOM! Damn, they fired a missile at the stage! No no, it was just an intro effect (and I was expecting the usual Arabic-style intro music...), and from the smoke, the lambs begin with "Ruin". By the third track, the right guitarist (the one who looks like Jesus) starts having feedback issues, and, to avoid the noise, he skips back and forth gesturing threateningly at the technicians. But the best is yet to come: we’re halfway through a track from the new album, the crowd is fired up, the musicians are fully engaged, here comes the central break..... power goes out. From 20 meters away, I could see the drummer’s face, and I assure you he would have wanted to hit someone right then, but instead, he just threw his sticks onto the stage and left. 10 minutes to fix everything, while the band members wandered around in need of affection. They resumed with another track, but at some point, the bass and a guitar cut out, leaving only three on stage. A sad but secretly amusing scene, in short, they couldn’t conclude in a more unfortunate way. The award for the unluckiest of the evening undoubtedly goes to them.
Now it’s time for the Children of Bodom and their prodigy leading lady; it's immediately obvious that many attendees were there for them, as everyone stands up as soon as they enter, accompanied by the notes of "Naked Gun" and the voice of a David Letterman-style presenter. A bit trashy as an idea but fun, just to not take themselves too seriously. The setlist is quite varied, taking a bit from all albums, and fortunately, the sound is decidedly better, but there's a rerun of embarrassing moments: even for the lake children, the power cuts out during a piece, only to return after a chorus of curses from the understandably pissed off crowd who had spent 40 bucks for this kind of service. After Alexi’s apologies, they resumed without further hitches, between baroque solos and exhortations spiced with various "fucking fuck". An enjoyable and engaging performance, aside from a few smudges and minor errors, one can say that they really know how to entertain people, kudos to them.
During the wait for the next show, "Cowboys from Hell" plays from the speakers, and seeing everyone sing it with passion makes the scene almost moving, it’s a true expression of eternal life even after death (for those who don’t know, it’s a track by Pantera, whose guitarist was killed years ago while performing on stage, a sad story...).
We’ve already reached the second-to-last group, more Europeans and among the founders of melodic death so dear now to American metal-core bands, In Flames. Their presentation wins the award for the greatest show-off, a row of cages flanking the drums (which are a little too embedded) with colorful neon lights creating light shows in time with the music. To the notes of the "Knight Rider" theme, the Swedes put on the longest concert so far, given the vastness of their repertoire. They too draw, to the great joy of fans, a bit from their entire discography and have the fortune to be free from sudden power cuts and to benefit from decent sound. The idea of recorded electronic bases on which they played, although necessary for the orchestral completeness of the pieces, felt a lot like playback to me and I didn’t appreciate them much (but I generally prefer raw sounds so I’m not really an authority). Despite this absolutely personal note, their performance was solid and under the stage, the audience was very engaged, so the In Flames pass with flying colors.
Hell is about to descend upon us: everything is being cleared to make room for the raised platform where the drums dominate, with Marshall stacks forming an inverted cross on either side (no comment needed), while images of chaos and despair will be projected behind to accompany the Masters, the Slayer!. Here comes the pseudo-industrial intro of “God hates us all”, the stage is gripped by infernal smoke (read "you can’t see a damn thing anymore"), and among dark eerie figures materialize to kick off with "Disciple". Oh, here we go again: who the hell did they put at the mixer board?!? Don't they realize that the guitars sound like washing machines and one of them is quieter?!? No, they don’t realize it, since that’s how it starts and that’s how it ends, with awful sounds. Their show is, how to say.... the classic Slayer show, you already know when Kerry will move to Jeff and vice versa, Tom (in an increasingly Santa-like version) presents the pieces with the same jokes used in the "War at the Warfield" DVD, the inverted crosses abound, the light and smoke effects are too, too intrusive, the pieces are well-played but not too much (I can’t figure out if the distortions are too strong or if they can’t stop the string properly, who knows...), but the crowd doesn’t care about any of this: a stormy sea makes me think that maybe the front row wouldn’t have been a good idea. Moments to remember are when Tom takes one of the fans’ banners and hangs it under the drums, thanking (a really nice gesture) and when he asks the audience if they want a “love song” to introduce "Dead Skin Mask".
After an hour they finally bid farewell, promising to return, the lights come on and a light jazz music accompanies us to the exit.
Overall very nice, it could have been perfect but the audio quality and especially the two electrical issues unfortunately didn’t allow it. Now I’m going to bed, as I’m exhausted.
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