Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

There is still time, an illusionary discourse perhaps as all things must eventually fade from view but as we approach our own deal with our makers and accept that we cannot go on forever, so we begin to see Time as our witness, our star spectator and possible judge. For Time is the harshest critic and the kindest of opponents, Time is the beat between the strings of the truculent guitar, the pulse in the drum pattern and the throb of delight as the lyrics of a career fill a venue, the volume drowning the thought that in the end, everybody says goodbye one final time.

There is still time, there are more than enough days and hours on stage to fill, but for Metal fans in Birmingham, perhaps the realisation that it will be the last ever moment in which to take in the effects of one of the biggest bands to ever grace a stage, was more than palpable. It was cause for reflection, a pain in which to conquer for the time being, a certain sadness as farewells often cause regretful melancholy and a wretched heart-ache which cannot be explained away lightly to those who do not understand the fullness of love and devotion.

In the act of the farewell, one can either turn their head away, not wishing to glimpse of the faces that have come to mean so much, or one can go down fighting, one can mosh and hammer out a sense of act of vengeance on Time itself. Ultimately Time will win, handsomely, but it is always with a tremendous grin attached to the mind and face that you might just leave a few bruises to be inflicted upon the entity, a series of contusions in which it will hobble and grimace at having crossed your path.

If we must say goodbye to one of the leading figures in Thrash, then in the spiritual home of Heavy Metal, the audience was more than able to set themselves down at the banquet available, they were ordered to be as musically carnivorous as possible, to tear the skin of the day and Time and chow down to the succulent morsels laid out in abundance.

In songs such as Repentless, Blood Red, Mandatory Suicide, War Ensemble, When The Stillness Comes, Black Magic, Postmortem, Seasons In The Abyss, Angel of Death and Raining Blood, Slayer didn’t just go out on high from the concrete jungle that Birmingham provides, they illuminated the city below with a series of electrifying shocks, they took hold of the scruff of the neck and announced with depth of soul, that with no doubt they were going to be missed.

There is always Time, always a last hurrah, and quite often you can never quite believe that it will be the final journey with a band you have admired, for the thousands inside the Birmingham Arena, the absolute sensation of the set might have been true indication that this was reality, going out on a high has never sounded so perfect.

Ian D. Hall