SLAYER wraps up their North American Tour and heads home, but it is not without sorrow that their fans bid them farewell, until the next time. As always, they put on a hell of a great show playing several songs off their newest album release “Repentless“. But of course, they could not have done a show without all their old favorites as well, such as ‘Reign in Blood‘, ‘South of Heaven‘ and of course, Jeff Hanneman’s tribute song, ‘Angel of Death‘. High-energy pit and a lot of headbanging fun was had by all!

Gary Holt proves to be quite the amazing guitarist one again, as he delivers a flawless performance. Not to mention during this tour, he only had one performance per night as opposed to playing twice in a night as in the previous tour. SLAYER toured with EXODUS and Holt pulled double duty. He not only played with his original band EXODUS, but also again with Tom Araya, Kerry King and Paul Bostaph, as he stood in for the bands fallen comrade, Jeff Hanneman.

Kerry and Gary’s guitar riffs compliment each other rather nicely and it was great to watch as these two guitar gods poured out face-melting solos between the two of them!. Even King Diamond was in attendance to see the almighty SLAYER, as he made a guest appearance at the show in Dallas, sitting stage left and watching from behind the scenes.

DEATH ANGEL opened the bill, sounding just as good as they did in the 90’s, as ANTHRAX followed. If there is one band that is a crowd pleaser, it definitely has to be these guys !  With their original singer, Joey Bella Donna and bassist Scott Ian at the helm, there is just no way to have a bad time! Again, they also played a lot of material off of their newest release “For All Kings”.

The band finished up the final leg of their world tour, in Canada and not a moment to soon!  Front man and bassist, Tom Araya, made it home just in time to welcome the newest member of his family into the world!. His daughter, gave birth to a happy, healthy, beautiful baby girl thus making the King of Metal, the Grandfather of Thrash!

Congratulations to the entire Araya family on this blessed event!!  Until next time… See ya in the pit!!

PHOTO PROVIDED BY ROBERT MARTIN, AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE SS213