1. They're going out with a massive bang…
“You’ve still got it!” rings a chant from the pit, fondly hijacking pro-wrestling parlance in Newcastle on Saturday night. Brilliantly, it’s justified. This isn’t the ‘classic’ line-up of Slayer. It’s not even close. With the untimely passing of legendary guitarist Jeff Hanneman in 2013 (and the departure of peerless percussionist Dave Lombardo in the same year), that bulletproof ensemble was forever fractured. Replacement axeman (and Exodus thrash icon in his own right) Gary Holt is no slouch, of course, and veteran drummer Paul Bostaph brings a particular bludgeon to proceedings, but, from clashes of style to those of the political nature, there’s still never been that old cohesion. The buzzing guitars and tumbledown drum-fills of Postmortem and Angel Of Death aren’t the same, still, yet here, egged-on by sprawling crowds and the decisiveness of it all, with a conflagration of pyro exploding around them, of it all they get pretty damn close.