Slayer - War at the Warfield DVD

Slayer - War at the Warfield: B+

I have seen the real life Beavis of Beavis and Butthead, if you see this video, you will see which guy I'm talking about --- it's quite hilarious yet tragic -- and he is a SLAYER fan

There's something to be said about this DVD. It's concert film from Slayer's GOD HATES US ALL (GHUA) Tour that is interspersed with fan commentary and short interview clips (of fans and band)

The track selection (or setlist, whichever you prefer) is excellent. It's cool to see the three new tracks from GHUA live. PLUS, they went deep in the playbook for classic SLAYER, including a nice sized swath of Reign in Blood and Haunting the Chapel.

One of the things that is very noticeable about Slayer live nowadays is that Tom's voice is pretty cabbaged out after all these years of aggro vox. The music is still very technical, speedy and brutal, but Tom's voice at times sounds unable to CATCH FIRE like he does on the studio recordings (or even in former tours)

The band does a pretty credible job of playing some of their songs, some of which are highly technical and speedy--- The thing I noticed, and I've seen Metallica and Kreator live recently, is that SOLOS are hard to pull off --- same here, some of the solos come off pretty garbled and gobbledy gook but hell, some of those solos are so precise and fast that you can't really blame them

One of the fun things of Slayer in concert is watching --- hmm, the FANS!!! --- not the band, they just stand there and do the bobmop thing. LOTSA action for some songs, it's quite cool to watch

The Bloodline video (taken from the Dracula 2000 soundtrack) which was banned by MTV is here as well in its GOREY entirety --- and it is damn cool

The FANS RULE documentary is not as interesting as it could be, but it is rather extensive (50 mins) --- in fact, to be honest, the interviewer is quite sarcastic and asks really over the top questions to the naive bunch of appearing fans (who in some ways are the butt of the joke --- which again is tragic and darkly humorous)--- This is the first time I've seen the band as relaxed and answering questions about the fans, the music, what a Slayer pit is like, FINALLY having women at the shows (HAHAHA) --- and one of the funnier moments is when Kirk Hammett from Metallica is asked to describe the difference between a Metallica and Slayer fan (quite hilarious)

In the final analysis, everyone looks good --- even Kerry, who apparently is trying to go HUMAN TATTOO on us -- the sound of this DVD is really good, and Bostaph shows why he can be one of the best metal drummers when he isn't injured --- and hey, it's about the MUSIC, really fun aggro music that has held up over the past 20.