The long awaited 1st of June, which was a date marked by every metalhead in Croatia as march upon Zagreb, because it was the host of American thrash legends Slayer and Anthrax. The spectale has been announced to be held in 9th Pavilion of Zagreb Fair (Zagrebački Velesajam). For American legends, there is no need for thier introduction, but I must mention that this was fourth time for Slayer and third time for Anthrax to play in Croatia and that it is not a coincidence,  'cause metalheads who occupied the place around the Pavilion gave them enough reason to come back and play again. 

 

In solid filled Pavilion as special guests, Anthrax entered the stage around 20:30h and opened the concert with Caught in a Mosh, however, bad sounding of guitars and barely heard Belladona were not enough to start a mosh. What followed were hits Got the Time, Madhouse, Antisocial but stil there was the same problem, however the band gave its best but the sound was just bad. 

In ther shortned set list, there were two songs from their new album For All Kings, Medusa and for the end, Belladona with his plume to complement ''Indians'' was their last song of 50 minutes set. With energetic performance of experienced Belladonna and Scot Ian who managed to entertain the audience between songs, despite the bad, unintelligible sound, heat and smoke in area, the question came whether the Pavilion was a good place for metal concert in general?

 

After Anthrax, followed 30 minutes pause and a small flow of audience went outside of Pavilion to catch a break and prepare for the legendary icons - Slayer.
 

Around 22:00h, lights shined and Tom Araya, Kerry King, Gary Holst and Paul Bostaph entered the stage, followed with applause of impatient audience. They've taken their place on stage and with sounds of their titled track from new album Repentless, they continued the evening in intense rhythm.
Sound was bad, undefined but far better than Anthrax. After the hits ''Postmortem'' and Disciple, audience got used to the sound and started to pump up with inveitable stage diving, mosh pits and every second lifting a mosher of the floor because of the cables that run through the middle of the pit to stage. But no matter, the audience got theire long awaited pleasure of Slayer.

Tom Araya first contact with audience was routinely done and with scream he announced War Ensemble which marked the beginning od neck-breaking headbanging from first 'till last second. Keryy King in his standard pose, decorated with chains and somewhat static, fulfilled Gary Holt but unfortunately it had no soul like with Hanneman. With a mix of new tracks and old hits, time flied too fast and after hits Dead Skin Mask, Season In The Abyss and Hell Awaits, I've felt that the end was near but as always, they suprised us with a return and the end to remember with gratest hits like South of Heaven, Raining Blood, Black Magic and with iconic Angel of Death they finnished their set list, bowed to audience after giving them some of their memorabilia and escorted with loud applause and whistle the went off the stage.
Slayer has again proved that despite their years, they can still pull off a quality gig but the impression for me was that all of this without Hanneman is soulless, unfortunately. 

Although this was my first concert at 9th Pavilion, visually it seemes like an okey place but constant bad sound in such a big hall, bad security guys and without ventilation proved to be a bad place to do this kind of gig.