It’s called thrash metal, not thrash the venue metal. That was the gist of the lecture Slayer’s Tom Araya gave fans after pausing their set and threatening to “go home” when fans became too unruly during their 40th anniversary celebration of Reign in Blood at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles on Saturday night. See fan video below.
Video showed the thrash metal legends stopped their second in a pair of shows at the LA venue about eight songs in and left the stage. The band’s singer-bassist reappeared to let the crowd know the fire marshal called for the show to pause because fans in seated sections were becoming destructive and on the brink of hurting people.
“I don’t know how many times I had this conversation when we first started playing in fucking huge places,” Araya told the crowd when he got back to the stage by himself and the houselights were turned on. “I kept telling everybody, ‘Man, you gotta fucking maintain yourself. You can’t start destroying shit because they’ll shut the shit down.’”
The audience began to jeer Araya before he cut them off, saying he didn’t want to hear the boos and went back to his explanation. “It’s hard to fucking maintain yourself. I know that. But you gotta fucking be respectful of the people around you, especially if you’re sitting in fucking seats. So the fire marshal said we’re gonna pause. We’re gonna pause until you guys get your shit and your act together, okay?”
Near the end of Araya’s lecture, he said “If you guys keep that shit up, we’re going to go home. And hope you guys don’t do that next time we come. You know, you think you can get away with shit and not get in trouble for it? We end up in trouble for it. We have to pay for that shit,” before ending the rant with, “Do you hear what I’m saying? All right, let’s see how you act. We might come back.”
Slayer did come back out about five minutes later to cheers and played the rest of their 23-song set, including Reign in Blood in its entirety, without enough venue destruction to ruin the night.
Slayer split in 2019 and reunited in 2024 for one-off shows over the next year. The Los Angeles thrash band announced in April that they would be celebrating 40 years of Reign in Blood with two shows, the final of which would be in their hometown.
A limited edition liquid-filled Reign in Blood zoetrope vinyl will be released on November 20th in honor of the iconic album’s anniversary.
See where Reign in Blood landed in Consequence’s list of the 75 Best Metal Albums of All Time.
