Slayer brought their concert at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum to a standstill on Saturday, with vocalist Tom Araya stepping away from the set to scold a section of the audience for unruly behavior.
“The fire marshal said we’re gonna pause. We’re gonna pause until you guys get your shit and your act together,” Araya told those seated in the arena. “There’s no one to blame but you. You know who I’m talking about.”
The rebuke arrived only seven songs into the band’s farewell performance on their North American tour. After resurrecting songs such as “God Send Death,” “Bloodline” and “The Antichrist” for their first live runs in nearly a decade, the audience’s enthusiasm appeared to tip into a safety hazard, forcing a five-minute break.
It was during that interval that Araya spoke to the crowd. “Quiet! I just need your attention. I don’t know how many times I had this conversation when we first started playing fucking huge places, I kept telling everybody, ‘Man, you gotta fucking maintain yourself. You can’t start destroying shit, because they’ll shut this shit down,’” he said.
“Listen, if you guys wanna have fun, you have fun right down here in front of us. Do it over here where there’s nothing you can destroy except each other. When you start doing shit on the outside of the line over there, they’re gonna shut the place down.”
That “line,” as Araya described it, marked the boundary of the seated arena bowl — territory occupied by more casual attendees, where moshing and crowd-surfing slams would be reckless.
“You guys get so fucking crazy you start hurting each other,” Araya said. “I know it’s hard to fucking contain yourself, it’s hard to fucking maintain yourself, I know that. But you have to be respectful of the people around you, especially if you’re sitting in fucking seats.”
He added that some fans had been damaging the venue, and that the cost of those repairs ultimately lands on the band.
“We’re in a time when there’s no consequences for the shit you fucking do. We need consequences. If you guys keep that shit up, we’re gonna go home, and hope you guys don’t do it next time we come,” Araya warned.
“Have you ever heard me talk to you like this? So you need to get your fucking heads on straight and behave like human fucking beings unless you’re in this fucking area in the front.”
In the end, despite an early round of boos and taunting “Ole, ole” chants, the crowd complied, and the show resumed without further trouble — closing with a full performance of Reign in Blood and an encore of “Black Magic.”
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