Slayer brings final tour to London’s Budweiser Gardens

A holiday Monday and a sea of fans in black t-shirts made their way into Budweiser Gardens knowing they were in for one hell of a night as Slayer brought their final world tour to London’s Budweiser Gardens.

This lineup packed with Slayer, Anthrax and Testament are all legends in their own right when it comes to the metal scene, while Lamb of God and Napalm Death are among the many paving the way in new metal.

Napalm Death kicked off the early evening with an intense set setting the tone for the night as fan’s made their way into Budweiser Gardens.

Next up was Testament taking over and firing up the already rowdy London crowd.

As the arena started to fill up, legends Anthrax hit the stage and bodies started to fly. I’ve gotta say that among the many highlights of Antrax’s set one specific thing caught the attention of the audience even before the band hit the stage and that was guitarist Scott Ian’s son peaking around the corner throwing up the horns to the crowd causing the whole floor to erupt. When the band took the stage he was planted side stage singing along to every word and head banging along and mimicking all of his dad’s moves on stage. There’s room for insanely cute moments in metal too right?

Lamb of God was next up and they came out with fury delivering a mind blowing set while frontman Randy Blythe jumped across the stage from riser to riser thrashing those dreads and delivering one hell of a performance.

With a dark curtain shadowing the stage it was time for Slayer. Even before the band started playing, there was no doubt that they pulled out all the stops for this final tour. The stage lit up with flames behind the curtain and the Slayer logo projected throughout the building as the band members made their way to the stage.

As the curtain dropped, Slayer wasted no time giving the fans the show they knew they came for. With more flames and pyro blazing behind them and the most intricate and intense backdrops I’ve ever seen constantly changing throughout the night definitely made this show one to remember. Slayer powered through all of the classics to the delight of a screaming, moshing, chanting crowd.

 

The crowd was a very eclectic mix of people from all walks of life. From the elder generation that have been life long fans. The mid generational fans that crowd surfed the entire night. The little boy in the front row with his dad head-banging and singing along with horns in the air all night long and our hero of the night the brave soul crowd surfing in his wheel chair made damn sure that if this was goodbye for Slayer, they definitely went out with one hell of a bang! London thanks you.