Halloween, 1986 - First SLAYER concert

Dan's mom warned us before we left for Seattle.  She made sure we were well aware of the date and what happens on All Hallow's Eve.  Spirits - many of them EVIL and bearing us ILL WILL - are loosed upon this unholy night and damn near anything can happen.  We sat in stoned silence as she imparted this age-old superstition in a deadly serious tone.  Once in a while, I glanced at Dan to see if this was for real, but his swollen, reddened eyes only told the story of too-many bong-hits.  His mother rambled on about Satan's plan to seduce youth such as us, one of his favorite tools being the dreaded Heavy Metal music!

Finally, she wrapped up with a scriptural flourish and we were out the door, in Dan's diesel-converted Chevette and off to pick up the other two guys who were going to the concert with us, Clint and David.  Normally, we didn't hang much with these guys but they had weed and they needed a ride.  When we got to Clint's house we discovered they also had a fifth of rum but Dan demanded gas money, anyway.  These guys were basically clowns who we knew we would ditch as soon as possible once we were at the show.

We loaded up on weed, rum and gasoline and we were off to Seattle to see the mighty Slayer at the Moore Theater.

A little history - I saw an ad for Slayer's first album, "Show No Mercy", in the back of a Hit Parader or Circus magazine or some damn thing and immediately knew that I had to have it.  Living in a tiny redneck, blue-collar town, it wasn't the easiest thing to track down back in 198-whatever, but I managed it.  Got it on cassette.  Listened to it once and it scared the shit outta me.  Traded it to David (the same as above) for a KEEL tape.  But as time went on I grew to miss it.  I yearned for it.  I became obsessed by it.  I wanted it back.  I was ready to explore this new sound in a better, a more prepared, state of mind.  I finagled the tape back from David, who was really easy to finagle, and pretty much listened to it nonstop until the second Slayer album, "Hell Awaits" was released.  Now I was definitely a fan.  This band was pushing the envelope in a way that nobody else seemed to be doing. Metallica paled in the face of such a satanic onslaught.  Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast" faded into the horror-movie scenario that it was meant to be and Slayer took center stage in my life, because they were the REAL DEAL.  

Now we were on our way to the Moore Theater, one of Seattle's oldest venues and purported to be, yes…haunted!  A haunted theater on Halloween night - is there no more perfect setting for seeing Slayer for the first time? 

Once in Seattle, we found a convenient parking garage and proceeded to partake of the good one last time.  In the process of doing this, David dropped Dan's sneak-a-toke into his cup of rum and coke and forevermore incurred Dan's wrath.  For the rest of the night, whenever he was around (which wasn't much as you'll see) he berated David mercilessly.  Luckily, Dan never travelled without a backup utensil.  When we were good and altered, we left the parking garage and entered into the Samhain night…

The first thing I was struck by was how many people had opted to wear a devil costume to the show that evening.  Many red-satin Satan's cavorted through the aisles of the Moore as I endeavored to take in the whole wild sight.  Of course there were other modes of costume that night, also - from the regulation headbanger gear of leather and spikes to the two, lovely blond twins who were right in front of us that decided to wear thin little polka-dot mini-skirts.  The odor of marijuana and beer wafted through the air.  Many people ignored the "NO SMOKING" signs and lit up with impunity.  People were moshing to the piped-in music over the PA.  Yelling at each other.  Yelling at no one in particular.  Chants of "Slay-Er!  Slay-Er!  Slay-Er!" would periodically rise and make the rounds for a few minutes before dying out to be replaced by more random screams and howls.

The opening band this night was seminal thrash act, Overkill.  They did their best, but this was clearly a Slayer crowd.  We were familiar with two of Overkill's songs - "Rotten To The Core" and "Hammerhead" - and they played both so we were okay with them.  After giving us the one-finger salute, which the audience heartily returned, they left the stage and we awaited the appearance of Satan's personal musical minions.

The experience was one I will never forget.  In swirling clouds of colored smoke, the band was relentless and personified all the rage, volume and excess that is Heavy Metal music.   Slayer had just released their now-classic magum opus, "Reign In Blood", and the guitars seared the air like razors slicing through our brains with Dave Lombardo's pummeling double-bass drums reducing what was left to pudding.  Speaking of razors - sometime during the concert I looked up at my arm (yes, up - as I was in a continuous state of raising the devil-horns) and noticed a razor-like gash that was dribbling blood.  To this day I have no idea how I got cut, but I took it as a sign and proudly wiped the crimson flow onto my KISW FM 100 ROCK t-shirt as a badge of brutality.  All the Slayer amenities of the time were present and in full force this night - Kerry King's 6-inch nail wristband; Tom Araya's introduction to "Die By The Sword" - (They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but I say FUCK the pen!  Because you can diiiiiie by the sword!); manic fans trampelling each other in the pit.  This was intensity.  Not even the D.R.I. show we had attended a couple months prior could compare to the ferocity and manic energy that was put out by the band and returned in full by the fans.  

At some point during the show, David decided it would be a good idea to try and crawl through the pit (in the Moore Theater it was literally a pit - the orchestra pit) and try to get past the security guys guarding the stage. What his purpose was in attempting this was never made clear and we didn't even know about it until after the show.  The result was predictable.  The beefy security guys tossed David out the side door, apparently injuring his arm in the process.  After the show, David claimed (through drunken tears) that his arm was broken and that he needed to go to a hospital.  Dan's response was "Fuck you, you got your own ass thrown out.  It's late and we're going home.  Besides you dropped my sneak-a-toke in your fuckin' rum and coke, dickhead".   A proper response, I thought.

The image that will always sum this show up in my mind happened about halfway through the gig.  Tom Araya, surveying the colorfully-attired Halloween night crowd, said to us, "I see you've all brought your upside-down crosses, tonight!", with a malicious grin.  In the next second, the lights were glaring off of hundreds of metallic satanic icons as the audience lifted thier Jehova-denying jewelery into the air.  Then the band launched into "Hell Awaits" sealing all our fates forever…