SLAYER Stole My Soul (and my hearing)...

Greetings MetalMortals,
I saw Slayer/Marilyn Manson last night at Allstate Arena in Chicago...S-L-A-Y-E-R!!! I have seen Slayer on Ozzfest before, but to see them as a headliner at an indoor venue could kill a fucking person! Kerry King & Company blew my fucking ears out. It was SO LOUD you could feel your chest thumping from the bass (at a concerning pulse) and it was moving the hair on my arms (yeah I have hairy arms...fuck you too).

Manson put on a good show and the highlight of his set was the closer The Beautiful People (there was even a mosh pit for for this one!). I gotta tell ya, the Slayer/Manson combo was a weird one...a lot of the Slayer fans were yelling out "show's over" when Slayer left the stage and otherwise displayed hostility toward Manson (and anything else non-Slayer). Manson didn't talk to the crowd at all and gave no warning of his last song and didn't do an encore. Not really my style, but whatever (apparently the Goths like this kind of treatment?). He was making an "artistic statement" I guess. Don't get me wrong...I dig some Manson here and there but I'm more of a Pantera/Ozzy/Megadeth/BLS/Down kind of dude.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW: South of Heaven...that song is just sick. It starts out with the cross illuminated on the wall of amps as the lead riff rips. Then the riff drops down and gets really heavy and the cross flips upside down...madness ensues.

MOST DISTURBING SIGHTING: While there were tons of Metal Hotties running around at the show (thank you Marilyn Manson), I did see some seriously disturbing shit as well. The most disturbing (and just wrong) sighting was a dude with a tattoo of "ARYAN PRIDE" across his collarbones and the "SS" insignia on his lower back. There is just no place for that kind of crap in the metal community today man. He'll probably be back in jail soon...

MOST SURPRISING: Who knew Marilyn Manson fans were serious potheads? I figured to smell a little herbage during the Slayer set, but it was a 420 marathon during the Manson set. Fire it up!

BIGGEST DOWNER: No beverages allowed on the floor/pit area. That is definitely NOT metal at all.

TECHNICAL ECSTASY MOMENT(S): Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman dueling guitar solos in almost every song. Technical chaos from the founding guitarists of Slayer at FULL volume...this is the kind of shit that makes you question if there really is a God? Pure Evil.

Here is a little taste of the Slayer magic (not from this tour...couldn't find a good clip from this tour. If you have one send it!)

Until next time...horns up!

Ozzfest 2007 Rocks Tinley Park, IL!

Greetings MetalMortals!
It has been much too long since we have connected on Tommy Knocker's Heavy Metal Cavern my brothers. I have attended a few concerts here and there that I haven't posted anything about (Stone Sour at House of Blues in Chicago a few months ago for example...which kicked ass by the way). I also saw Heaven & Hell with Ronnie James Dio in Chicago at Allstate Arena fairly recently as well. I'm a HUGE Ozzyhead and have totally ignored Dio until The Dio Years came out and I saw him live. Dio is the MAN! One of the Godfathers of Metal and he has some serious pipes....a must see.

But, now...OZZFEST 2007 came and kicked my ass! I had to put up a post with pics that I took at the show. PS: All my pics are from the 2nd Stage cuz this fool got a little trigger happy.


BIGGEST SURPRISE: Ozzy didn't play Iron Man or Flying High Again. WTF?! He played a great set list, but I was a little bummed out about these two being left off.

WEIRDEST SHIT THAT I SAW: A band called ChthoniC from Taiwan. Those were some weird motherfuckers. A little 135-pound Taiwanese dude prattling/growling on about Taiwan's independence from China or some shit and growling to hold the Taiwanese flag up high (someone had one in the crowd) is some weirdness for the Midwest man! It's all good, but it scored right up there on the weirdness chart. There was dude playing some kind of "stick popping out of a box" with a violin bow....now that shit was weird AND it scared me a bit.

BEST BAND: O-Z-Z-Y!....O-Z-Z-Y!....O-Z-Z-Y!....O-Z-Z-Y! My boy Zakk Wylde was wearing some crazy black kilt thing, but he rocked it as usual. Ozzy's opening song Bark at the Moon below (from Chicago).


BEST GUITAR SOLO: Zakk Wylde....have a listen. Called my home answering machine from my cell phone at the show and recorded it! [insert link to audio here -- coming soon!]

BEST MOSH PIT: 2nd Stage during Hatebreed. It was a HUGE fucking pit brothers! This pit got to moving pretty fast. Getting trampled from behind was a thought running through the ole skully on this one.


HOTTEST LEAD SINGER?!: Yup, the "Gwen Stefani" of heavy metal is emerging on the scene. In This Moment's lead singer Maria was definitely the hottest lead singer to grace the stages at Ozzfest 2007 (or any Ozzfest for that matter). Below is a ridiculously shitty picture that I took at the show. I have also included a clip from YouTube for a better view of the goings on from another stop on the tour.


A few more random Ozzfest 2007 pics that I took...








Ozzy's video intro...