Two months ago, I won tickets from a local radio station to see Slayer, Megadeth, and Testament in Sacramento.
I have seen all three bands at least once before, but this is a smoking line up, and you couldn’t keep me away.
Julie and I left for the arena (my Mom watched the house and pets while we was gone…thanks Mom!) and drove down to Woodland, which is about 20 minutes from the arena. We got a room at a Motel 6, which was cheap…for a reason. Apparently, it is thug central with tons of parolee-looking crack heads hanging out. The room was small, and the AC loud and weak. The good news was we wasn’t gonna be there long.
After resting up for a bit, we had dinner at the Denny’s next door and drove down to Arco Arena. We found a park close to the doors, and sat on the tailgate and had some drinks and watched the people. The fan mix was everyone from the 8-year old to the 70+ year old. Everyone was sporting their favorite black concert tee short.
As 7pm got close, we grabbed out tickets and went in. Luckily the frisk search was cursory, and Julie was asked “is that your cell phone?” She said ‘yes, but it was our flip video camera 
Once inside, I went to the merch counter and got a Slayer shirt just because I could. They were $15 cheaper than the Iron Maiden shirts from last month. We found our seats…it was all general admission, but there was plenty of seating available. We was right of the stage, and just above it. We had a really good view of the bands, except the drummers were slightly obscured by a speaker set up on the corners of the stage.
Some band observations:
Testament:
It has been many years since I have seen Testament. The last time was with my friend Dean, and back then we was all long hair and right (literally) in the front row against the barriers.
Now, a bit older and in the safe seats, I was surprised at how freeking heavy testament has gotten! The singer is more of a sing/growl style, and the band shredded! One highlight was the “Wall of Death”. The singer split the crowd like Moses parting the red sea, then commanded them to collide on command…they did, and it was awesome!
Megadeth:
My favorite band of the triple bill. They played the entire Rust in Peace album, then finished with some of their hits. The band sounded spot on. Dave Mustain’s vocals sounded a bit off…almost screachy at times, but it still sounded good in the moment. It was Megadeth live fr crying out loud!! I wish I still had the partial drum stick from Nick Menza (who is no longer in the band) that I got last time I saw them (also with Dean). Me and another guy caught the drumstick, and we both had a stranglehold on it. After several long minutes, we was at a stalemate, and we agreed to break it in half (I did the breaking and got the better half with Nick’s name).
Slayer:
Wow! Slayer killed it (pun intended)!!.
I saw Slayer during the Clash of the Titans tour in 1991. The band was still super solid and sounded great. Kerry King was a monster bad ass, and shredded. I noticed that both guitarists in Slayer changed guitars after every song, while Testament’s 2 guitarists played the entire set and never changed then once. It’s good to be the headlining act!
At the concerts, there were signs posted about people caught with “illegal substances” would be ejected or arrested. They warning didn’t stop the guy sitting a couple of seats down from me. I have never seen anyone smoke as much weed as that guy. He literally chain smoked 30-35 joints throughout the 3 bands. How he was even standing up was beyond me!
We also had a Brett Michaels look-alike sit in front of us. Julie and I both did a double take, but it was just a poser, not the real thing!
After the concert, we was about to get out quick and get back to the motel room easily around midnight. In the morning, we had breakfast (again at Denny’s), and got home at 10:30.
Here are some clips we took with the flip camera:
Megadeth Montage
Slayer: South of Heaven
Some Photos:
