Slayer [Lupos @ The Strand, Providence, RI] 16 Feb 2007

We saw Slayer.

I know for years I've been pretending that I am cool enough to have already seen Slayer, but it was not true.

But, now! Now I am that awesomecross.

However, the city of Providence always provides wretchedness, and it took us over a half-hour to get from the highway to the venue and then another 15 minutes to find parking. Absolute terror. There is no parking in downtown Providence on a Friday night, apparently. And, then, the walking and the ice and the terrible RI drivers, oh my.

While we were waiting outside to get into the very poorly placed Lupos, there was a mass of black hoodies as far as the eye could see and boys shouting, "Slaaay-errrrr!" "Who you gonna see?" "SLAAAAAAYYYYERRRR!" No, really, I couldn't make this up. There was maybe a handful of girls, and totally only one other one that wasn't completely townie. The clump of folks behind us complained about $5 parking fees. I believe I have lived in Boston too long. When we found out it was $5, I about kissed the guy.

Once inside, it was much of the same, except in a converted theater that was terrifyingly overcrowded with a scarily inaccessible pit area. The Boy and I hoofed up to the balcony, and scored some decent general admission seats behind a gentleman who was working hard to conceal his bowl. Aw, smokies. We also overheard one of the strangest conversations I have ever been privvy to in that peculiar Rhod'eyeland accent.

Hey-Dude: Yo, you see this? I told that lady at the bahr to go light on the ice, and you can see, she went light on the ice!"
Dude-Hey: Yeah, that's good, man, I'll have to 'member that one.
Hey-Dude: Seriously, light on the ice, see, I can actually move it around. We shoulda gave her a bettah tip, I shoulda known.

There was also a girl with a tee shirt that proclaimed "Fuckin' Slayer!" Amazing.

Slayer finally came out and destroyed the entire theater. They're getting up there in years, with gray in their beards and such, but they completely killed. Very tight. I knew more songs than I thought I did, and I managed to keep in time with the fucked up syncopation on their older stuff. You couldn't see the pit/standing crowd at all, which was sad, because watching the crowd at metal shows is part of the experience. Sometimes it's better than the damn band! But, whatever, Slayer did it up.

We left early enough that it was on a high note and we managed to find the car, which we learned, in downtown Providence on a Friday night is apparently a very difficult task.