Final Day Of Riot Fest 2024 Brought The Rain, The Mud and The Metal.

Sep 25, 2024 admin_bitlc Features, Music News, Reviews 0

By Christopher David

Starting off with some fun novelty acts like Nekrogoblikon and Saxsquatch to help lift the crowd out of the gloomy day, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the best parts of this year’s Riot Fest.

Biscuits.

If you know what I’m talking about, then you know how amazing it was. And if you don’t…the Logan Arcade’s tent in Riotland featured animatronic, all-dog band dressed as and covering the Misfits. Trust me, you didn’t know you need a hound-dog looking robot in Glenn Danzig’s skeleton shirt singing stomping it’s foot to “We Are 138” until you saw it. This better be a yearly thing from now on.

Back to the normal schedule, power metal giants Mastodon delivered a killer set that focused on the entirety of their 2004 album Leviathan. The Vandals kept the spirit of old school punk alive on the NOFX stage, and Gwar maintained their rep of impeccably bad taste by hosing the audience down with blood and executing Benjamin Netanyahu over the course of their hour-long set.

(The only thing more entertaining than watching Gwar was listening to those who didn’t know about them clutch their pearls and decry how inappropriate they were. No kidding. They’ve been doing this for almost forty years now.)

Something Corporate’s set focused heavily on newer material, and while the band sounded great and drew rapturous singalongs from a massive crowd, more material from the earlier days of the band’s catalog would have been a welcome addition.

Lamb of God, fronted by the always outspoken Randy Blythe, felt like a shift in the day’s atmosphere, setting the stage for what was to come with an hour of uncompromising, humorless metal.

And Rob Zombie showcased a ‘new’ band—the original Hellbilly lineup with the exception of drummer Ginger Fish—as he tore through a set that offered giant monsters, robots, and more than a few surprises like the thrashing “Satanic Rites of Blacula” and opener “Demon Speeding.”

Finally, it was time for the main event.

The unexpected, much anticipated return of thrash metal titans Slayer.

The hype around Slayer’s sudden emergence from their 2019 retirement threatened to overshadow their appearance at times over the last few months since the announcement. Was it a full-on reunion? Was bassist/vocalist Tom Araya fully on board, having indicated a desire for retirement long before they actually called it quits? What would they play?

There’s no real answer to the first question, but based on the band’s energy, performance, and Araya clearly having a great time (even bringing out his grandkids at the end!), it seems silly to rule it out.

Taking the stage after a documentary-style hype video consisting of old live clips and interviews, Satan’s favorite quartet opened with “South of Heaven” and had the pit swirling from the get-go. Deep cuts were plentiful, from Reign in Blood’s “Reborn” to “Temptation” from 1990’s Seasons in the Abyss, to “213,” an overlooked gem from 1994’s Divine Intervention, which saw it’s first live play since 1998.

“Everybody having a good time?” Araya said at one point with a grin. “Singing and dancing to death and destruction?”

‘A good time’ was an understatement. To the faithful metal masses, Slayer’s first show since their retirement was the festival equivalent of a tent revival, and as the band launched into “Raining Blood,” perhaps their most well-known paean to all things evil, the speaker stacks erupted in flame, forming two huge, inverted crosses on either end of the stage as a Sabbatic goat threatened to tear through the stage screen amid red-streaking curtains of simulated rain. It’s on YouTube—but for the full effect on a gloomy, almost-autumn night, you had to be there. It might have been dark and twisted, but it was, unquestionably, a celebratory moment of triumph and catharsis for fans of the band. Here’s hoping Slayer decide to surprise us again—sooner than later, this time. Is Riot Fest 2025 too soon.