Slayer bootleg CDs

Slayer bootlegs

Buenos Aires 1998
Tracks 1-15 - Live Monsters Of Rock Festival Velez Sarsfield Stadium, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 12, 1998 Tracks 16-17 - "Diabolus In Musica" bonus tracks
Evil Records ER-25631-2
	1. Bitter Peace
	2. Death's Head
	3. Evil Has No Boundaries
	4. Hell Awaits
	5. War Ensemble
	6. South Of Heaven
	7. Raining Blood
	8. Dittohead
	9. Die By The Sword
	10. Black Magic
	11. Captor Of Sin
	12. Dead Skin Mask
	13. Seasons In The Abyss
	14. Mandatory Suicide
	15. Angel Of Death
	16. Unwanted Instict (B-Side) [sic]
	17. Wicked (B-Side)

The bootleg lists the date as December 13th, but the show is actually from the 12th. Almost all of the stage banter is in Spanish. The inclusion of "Evil has No Boundaries" and "Black Magic" isn't really anything special, as Slayer normally resurrected those songs for live shows around '98-'00--but I find the inclusion of the older tracks makes this set much more enjoyable than some of their other post-'94 bootlegs.

Track 16 (actually "Unguarded Instinct") is a bonus track from the Japanese version of the "Diabolus..." album. Track 17 is a bonus from Japanese/European versions. Beyond that, they aren't worth discussing...

Buenos Aires Awaits
River Plate Stadium, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sep. 3, 1994
Label unknown (Disc: JLD0006)
70:14

Given tracklisting:	Correct tracklisting:
1. Hell Awaits	1. Hell Awaits
2. The Antichrist	2. The Antichrist
3. Spirits In Black	3. Spirit In Black
4. Die By The Sword	4. Die By The Sword
5. Mind Control	5. Mind Control
6. Post Mortem	6. Postmortem
7. Raining Blood	7. Raining Blood/Altar Of Sacrifice/Jesus Saves (part 1)
8. Jesus Saves	8. Jesus Saves (part 2)
9. Captor Of Sin	9. Captor Of Sin
10. Dead Skin Mask	10. Dead Skin Mask
11. Seasons In The Abyss	11. Seasons In The Abyss
12. Mandatory Suicide	12. Mandatory Suicide
13. War Ensemble	13. War Ensemble
14. South Of Heaven	14. South Of Heaven
15. Angel Of Death	15. Angel Of Death

Date is listed in European order as 3/9/94 throughout the inserts. Some, but not all of Tom's stage banter is in Spanish.

At 3:16 of "Hell Awaits," the right audio cuts out for a second.

Track 13 fades out and track 14 fades in.

All of the instruments seem to be slightly distorted and the guitars get a little muffled at times. Turning up the volume helps which you'll probably have to do anyway, as the sound of the bootleg is relatively soft. The drums are definitely up-front in the mix, but fortunately, unlike many other bootlegs, they don't totally overpower everything else. While I think the setlist and length make this the best of the mid-90s/"Divine Intervention"-era bootlegs, it's not particularly special otherwise--they've clearly had better shows and setlists both before and after this one.

Butcher Babies
Dynamo Club, Eindhoven, Holland, May 28th, 1985
Label unknown BB 101

Given tracklisting:	Correct tracklisting:
1. Hell Awaits	1. Hell Awaits
2. Aggressive Perfector	2. Aggressive Perfector
3. Captor Of Sin	3. Captor Of Sin
4. Praise Of Death	4. Praise Of Death
5. Haunting The Church	5. Haunting The Chapel
6. Final Conflict	6. Final Command
7. Crypts Of Eternity	7. Crypts Of Eternity
8. Neerophilanmac	8. Necrophiliac
9. Blank Magic	9. Black Magic/Die By The Sword
10. Die By The Sword	10. Hardening Of The Arteries
11. Hardening Of The Artillery	11. Fight Till Death
12. Fight Till Death	12. The Antichrist
13. The Antichrist	13. At Dawn They Sleep/Show No Mercy
14. At Dawn They Sleep	-- --
15. Show No Mercy	-- --

No date or location information is given. Before I got it, all information I saw about the bootleg from dealers and online claimed this bootleg was from a June 14, 1985 gig in Nürnberg, Germany. I had no reason not to believe that, but suddenly I get to the end and Araya thanks "Dynamo."

However, the weird thing is, on that tour, Slayer actually played the Dynamo club twice, on May 28th, and then again on June 3. If you look closely at the cover, you can see Jeff Hannemann holding a flyer advertising the other June 3rd show.

There are fade-ins/fade-outs between all tracks, so virtually all the stage banter is gone. However, the tracklisting is the same order as the setlist for the May 28th show. The songs were switched around a bit for the June show (for example, "Hell Awaits" was the second to last song rather than the opener). Also note "Evil has No Boundaries," "Chemical Warfare," and "Kill Again" were played but are not on the bootleg. I'm assuming these 3 tracks were encores, since Araya's stage banter makes it sound like "Show No Mercy" is the final song.

The disc itself is printed with fake songtitles and is dated 1990. On my copy, the pressing information on the inner ring of the CD has actually been scratched out from the top (I assume by the bootlegger). If you've seen an original copy that isn't scratched like this, please let me know. I'm curious if any exist.

The volume falters slightly for a moment at 2:26 on track 4.

And according to the back insert, this show seems to have had a very special lineup:

Kerry Kong - guitar
Tommy Araya - bass & vocals
Jeff Hangman - guitar
M.C. Hammer - drums

A pretty typical, excellent vintage Slayer gig. The vocals seem to be a bit stronger in the mix than the instruments, and Araya's high screams are really great at this show. However, since almost all of the stage banter has been edited out (which is one of the best things about the old shows!) and it's not complete, it's not quite as good or memorable as some of the other '85 bootlegs below.

This bootleg is supposedly the same show as the "Aggressive Perfector" and "Slayer Live!" (based on tracklistings I've seen, this second one may be missing 2 tracks from the gig) bootleg CDs, but as I don't have either of those, I can't directly compare them, although the tracklistings I've seen for those are in the same order. Again, those two are also supposedly from the Nürnberg gig. I don't have it, but the "Dynamo Awaits" bootleg supposedly has the 3 missing songs from the set.

It may also be worth noting that this May 28th gig is the most widely bootlegged Slayer show on vinyl.

Captors Of Sin
Tracks 1-6 - From "Live Undead" Tracks 7-10 - ??? Track 11 - Normal studio version Contains mostly officially-released material!
CDM G-53 257
	1. Evil Has No Boundaries
	2. Show No Mercy
	3. Aggressive Perfector
	4. Black Magic - Die By The Sword
	5. Captor Of Sin
	6. The Antichrist
	7. Hell Awaits
	8. Final Command
	9. Necrophile [sic]
	10. Crypts Of Eternity
	11. Chemical Warfare

Multiple bootlegs with this title exist.

This particular version of "Captors of Sin" is probably the worst Slayer bootleg--this is a big disappointment if you're expecting much unreleased live material. Tracks 1-6 are straight from the "Live Undead" album with a slightly rearranged track order and some editing. Track 11 is the normal studio version of "Chemical Warfare."

Tracks 7-10 appear to be authentic live songs, but the bootleg gives no information on when or where they were recorded. There are breaks between them, so it's possible they're not even from the same gig. I've seen claims that these are from the famous '85 Belgian show (perhaps people are mixing it up with the other versions of the bootleg, see below). If all these tracks are from the same gig then they are definitely NOT from Belgium as Slayer did not play "Crypts of Eternity" at the Heavy Sounds Festival.

There are at least two other bootleg CDs titled "Captors of Sin," with 14 tracks, supposedly taken from two gigs in Germany and Belgium. These are on the "Golden Stars" and "Iron Cock" labels. I don't know if there are any differences between these other versions beyond the different label, but they use a graveyard cover/motif as well, so I'm not sure if there's any sort of connection between all these "Captors of Sin" bootlegs. The 14-track versions' cover is similar to the one pictured, except "Slayer" is in white lettering on the cover. In addition to the CDs, there is also an LP version of the 14-track version which has the same graveyard cover but with the classic Slayer swords logo.

Dance Of The Dead
Live Le Zenith, Paris, France, Nov. 22, 1991
Metal Guru Records

Given tracklisting:	Correct tracklisting:
1. Hell Awaits	1. Hell Awaits/The Antichrist
2. Antichrist [sic]	2. War Ensemble
3. War Ensemble	3. South Of Heaven/Raining Blood/ Altar Of Sacrifice/Jesus Saves medley
4. South Of Heaven	4. Die By The Sword
5. Raining Blood	5. Dead Skin Mask
6. Altar Of Sacrifice	6. Seasons In The Abyss
7. Jesus Saves	7. Born Of Fire
8. Die By The Sword	8. Chemical Warfare
9. Dead Skin Mask	9. Mandatory Suicide
10. Seasons In The Abyss	10. Angel Of Death
11. Born Of Fire	-- --

CD itself is printed with false information to avoid bootleg detection at the pressing plant--the band name and title are given as Butchers Of Paris "Massacre In The Zenith" and the serial number is given as "Slay Records ZENITH 1505." Note that on audio trading lists, this show is sometimes referred to as "Butchers of Paris" or "Massacre in the Zenith."

Probably the best of the post-80s Slayer bootlegs, as it has a good song selection without any of the post-"Seasons..." filler.

Devil's Desciples
Live Donington, UK, Aug. 22, 1992
Kiss The Stone KTS 124
	1. Hell Awaits/Antichrist [sic]
	2. South Of Heaven
	3. Silent Scream
	4. Dead Skin Mask
	5. Seasons In The Abyss
	6. War Ensemble
	7. Mandatory Suicide/Reign In Blood [sic]/Angel Of Death

Bootleg itself gives no info beyond live Europe '92. Note that this is the same show as on the "Angel of Death," "Aural Assault," and "Donington 1992" bootlegs.

Die By The Sword
Live Limburghal, Genk, Belgium, Sept. 22, 1990
Halloween Records HW OO2

Given tracklisting:	Correct tracklisting:
1. Raining Blood	1. Raining Blood
2. Black Music	2. Black Magic
3. War Ensemble	3. War Ensemble
4. Bloodred	4. Blood Red
5. Postmortem	5. Postmortem
6. Skeletons Of Society	6. Skeletons Of Society
7. Die By The Sword	7. Die By The Sword
8. Altar Of Sacrifice	8. Altar Of Sacrifice
9. Jesus Saves	9. Jesus Saves
10. Dead Skin Mask	10. Dead Skin Mask
11. Bury The Evil	11. Spirit In Black
12. Mandatory Suicide	12. Mandatory Suicide
13. Live Undead	13. Live Undead
14. South Of Heaven	14. South Of Heaven
15. Angel Of Death	15. Angel Of Death

The audio is exactly the same as the "Live In Genk 22.09.90" CD down to the exact running time; see that bootleg's listing below for show details. The big difference is that the packaging here is nicer and less generic.

Be warned that there is also a totally unrelated CD-R also called "Die By The Sword" which contains early 80s material.

Dynamo Open Air 2004 (Digipak)
Dynamo Open Air festival Goffertpark, Nijmegen, Holland, June 5, 2004
Label unknown (UPC: 941119411169)
77:50
	1. Disciple
	2. God Send Death
	3. War Ensemble
	4. At Dawn They Sleep
	5. Necrophiliac
	6. Spill The Blood
	7. Payback
	8. Mandatory Suicide
	9. Fight Till Death
	10. Dead Skin Mask
	11. Hell Awaits
	12. South Of Heaven
	13. Angel Of Death
	14. Postmortem
	15. Raining Blood

Bootleg comes in a simple digipak. While professional looking and nicely printed, it unfortunately uses crappy modern fonts and layout. There is no label or serial number anywhere on the digipak or disc, just a UPC code on the back. The inner panel of the digipak contains the backwards message "Especialy made for Arno Coenen" along the edge. He's a relatively well-known Dutch media artist and metal fan who used to do "Die Hard" 'zine.

The bootleg fades in just as "Disciple" starts.

It sounds like there's a break at track 6 at 5:24, as the crowd noise suddenly changes.

There's a hiccup in the audio at 2:16 of track 7. There's a slight chance it might be a skip because of wear on my particular copy. If you have this bootleg too, please let me know if it's on your copy.

The "Angel of Death" opening scream is probably Tom's weakest ever. Not because of his normal modern hoarse vocals...But because he tries and practically nothing comes out! It's almost completely drowned out by the instruments. You could breathe on mic and it would be louder.

Typical modern Slayer soundboard recording, although there are a few nice surprises like "Fight Till Death" and "Spill the Blood." This also documents the 2004/2005 period where they actually played 3 "Hell Awaits" songs in their sets; as far as I remember, that's the most they've ever played from the album at a single gig since the mid '80s.

This same show is also on the "Holland Hates Us Too" and "War Over Dynamo" bootlegs.

Killing For A Living
Live Hugenottenhalle, Neu-Isenburg, Germany, June 19, 1985
Metal Memory MM 90027
	1. Hell Awaits
	2. Aggressive Perfector
	3. Captor Of Sin
	4. Final Command
	5. Kill Again
	6. Crypts Of Eternity
	7. Fight Till Death
	8. Haunting The Chapel
	9. Hardening Of The Arteries
	10. Black Magic
	11. Die By The Sword
	12. The Antichrist
	13. At Dawn They Sleep
	14. Show No Mercy
	15. Chemical Warfare

Excellent vintage show with some great stage banter, almost as good as "Obscure and Obscene."

"Black Magic" fades out into "Die By The Sword," so there was obviously some sort of edit.

Live at the Roskilde Festival June 1998
Roskilde Festival, Roskilde, Denmark, June 25, 1998
Raising Hell Records RHR061998-2
60:15

Given tracklisting:	Correct tracklisting:
1. Hell Awaits	1. Intro
2. Captor Of Sin	2. Hell Awaits
3. War Ensemble	3. Captor Of Sin
4. Dead Skin Mask	4. War Ensemble
5. Dittohead	5. Dead Skin Mask
6. Die By The Sword	6. Dittohead
7. Stain Of Mind	7. Die By The Sword
8. South Of Heaven	8. Stain Of Mind
9. Raining Blood	9. South Of Heaven/Raining Blood
10. Altar Of Sacrifice/Jesus Saves	10. Altar Of Sacrifice
11. Chemical Warfare	11. Jesus Saves
12. Mandatory Suicide	12. Chemical Warfare
13. Angel Of Death	13. Mandatory Suicide
-- --	14. Angel Of Death

While the disc itself is a factory-pressed silver-CD, the inserts seem to be rather cheap since they're printed on thin, normal white paper (the booklet is blank inside). The printing quality is very good and the back insert is even professionally preforated along the spines, so I'm assuming these are the normal inserts. I can't really blame the bootlegger, I guess, because this is one of the worst bootleg covers in history, and it would be a shame to waste nicer paper on it.

At the fest, Slayer played right before Black Sabbath, Tom mentions this in the stage banter for "Mandatory Suicide."

Track 1 (11 seconds long) is just a false start. It begins with 2 seconds of crowd noise, then the rest of the track is blank. On track 2 the crowd noise starts all over again and the bootleg proceeds properly.

Flawless sound quality. Nothing wrong with the set for this time period, though as should be expected, except for the newer songs it's mostly their usual greatest hits.

The "Back in the Game" bootleg CD is of the same gig, but judging by the tracklisting, it's missing "Die by the Sword."

Live In Genk 22.09.90
Live Limburghal, Genk, Belgium, Sept. 22, 1990
Headliner HL -CD 010
	1. Raining Blood
	2. Black Magic
	3. War Ensemble
	4. Bloodred [sic]
	5. Postmortem
	6. Skeletons Of Society
	7. Die By The Sword
	8. Altar Of Sacrifice
	9. Jesus Saves
	10. Dead Skin Mask
	11. Spirit In Black
	12. Mandatory Suicide
	13. Live Undead
	14. South Of Heaven
	15. Angel Of Death

For some reason, the disc itself and most of the sites with info on this bootleg list Genk as a city in the Netherlands!

This bootleg contains a humorous stage banter mishap. At the end of track 2, Tom addresses the crowd as "Brussels," who then proceed to boo and chant something I couldn't make out; Araya then yells at the crowd for booing ("Keep it up and we're not gonna do the fuckin' song!")

This same show is also available on the "Die By The Sword" CD above, which has slightly better packaging.

Sound quality is relatively good, with raw, up-front guitars and vocals. The recording has a bit of an open-air gig feel to it, even though the Limburghal is enclosed. It's almost impossible to go wrong with a pre-'94 show Slayer boot, and this is no exception--an interesting show that provided the audience a preview of the then-unreleased "Seasons In The Abyss" album. But it's very strange and unfortunate that nothing from "Hell Awaits" is included!

There is a fade-out/fade-in between tracks 10 and 11, and a possible jump at 4:46 of track 14.

Obscure And Obscene
Elkerlyck, Luttenberg, Holland, June 2, 1985
Metal Memory MM 90028
	1. Hell Awaits
	2. Aggressive Perfector
	3. Captor Of Sin
	4. Fight Till Death
	5. Kill Again
	6. Haunting The Chapel
	7. Necrophiliac
	8. Black Magic
	9. Die By The Sword
	10. Praise Of Death
	11. The Final Command
	12. Hardening Of The Arteries
	13. At Dawn They Sleep(+ drum solo)
	14. Show No Mercy
	15. Evil Has No Boundaries
	16. Chemical Warfare
	17. The Antichrist

Between the fantastic stage banter and the setlist, easily the best Slayer bootleg.

There is some distortion and a quick vocal drop-out during the stage banter before "The Antichrist."

San Fransico - The Stone - 23-08-1985
The Stone, San Francisco, CA, Aug. 23, 1985
Label unknown Limited to 333 hand-numbered copies
	1. Hell Awaits
	2. Aggressive Prefector [sic]
	3. Crypts Of Eternity
	4. The Final Command
	5. Necrophiliac
	6. Hauting The Chapel [sic]
	7. Fight Till Death
	8. Black Magic
	9. Die By The Sword
	10. Kill Again
	11. Captor Of Sin
	12. Harding Of The Arteries [sic]
	13. The Antichrist
	14. At Dawn They Sleep
	15. Show No Mercy
	16. Evil Has No Boundaries
	17. Chemical Warfare

Yes, yet another bootlegger has spelled San Francisco incorrectly. Supposedly South American in origin, as of this writing this seems to be the most recently-produced bootleg of vintage material, and the earliest U.S. show on CD. If you have to ask if this bootleg is any good, you obviously haven't looked at the tracklisting.

The overall sound is a bit low, making some of the stage banter hard to hear clearly, and the recording quality and stage banter isn't quite as good as some of the other '85 bootlegs. Still an excellent, energetic show with a crazy audience--you'll hear Tom yell at the crowd for interfering with their playing, and manic headbangers crying out for some of the more obscure cuts off "Show No Mercy."

Apparently a second version/press of this CD was released that's limited to 666 copies. I don't have it so I can't compare the two versions.

Slaughter in the North
Solnahallen, Stockholm, Sweden, Dec. 16, 1994
Bud Records SW 006 (Disc: Hot Love Records HL 005)
61:49

Given tracklisting:	Correct tracklisting:
1. Killing Fields	1. Killing Fields
2. War Ensemble	2. War Ensemble
3. At Dawn They Sleep	3. At Dawn They Sleep
4. Divine Penetration	4. Divine Intervention/Dittohead
5. Ditto Head	5. 213
6. 213	6. South Of Heaven/Raining Blood/Black Magic
7. South Of Heaven	7. Dead Skin Mask/Seasons In The Abyss
8. Rainbow Blood	8. Mandatory Suicide/Angel Of Death
9. Black Magic	-- --
10. Dead Skin Mask	-- --
11. Seasons In The Abyss	-- --
12. Mandatory Suicide	-- --
13. Angel Of Death	-- --

From a show with Machine Head opening. Date is written as a single number ("941216") everywhere on the bootleg. The title is misspelled "Slaghter In The North" on the side spines of the back insert.

At the beginning of tracks 1 and 6, there's a sound effect of something like a heavy door squeaking and being shut (like from a horror movie). Right before the sound effects, at the very end of track 5 you can hear someone (an announcer, I'm guessing) just start to speak before it cuts out. I'm assuming this was from a radio broadcast and the sound effects/announcer are the station IDs or breaks.

At 8:23 of track 4, during the stage banter before "213," it sounds like there's a sound oddity as the crowd noise seems to skip for a split-second.

at 10:38 of track 6, there is a possible jump or edit, as the sound of the crowd noise seems interrupted.

There is a bit of noise at 4:04 of track 8 during the intro to "Angel of Death." If you have this bootleg, please contact me and let me know if it's on your copy. I can't tell whether it's noise in the audio or a blip/skip caused by wear on my copy of the CD.

Excellent soundboard recording--as I said above, I think this might be from a radio broadcast, and video footage of the show apparently exists. Since it's from '94, not suprisingly, most of the setlist focus is on "Divine Intervention," with only one song from each of the first two albums. Tom's "Angel of Death" scream is pretty weak.

Slaytanic Comeback
Philips Monsters Of Rock Festival, Pacaembu Stadium, S�o Paulo, Brazil, Aug. 27, 1994
Razor Blade RB506

Given tracklisting:	Correct tracklisting:
1. Hell Awaits	1. Hell Awaits
2. Antichrist [sic]	2. The Antichrist
3. Mind Control	3. Mind Control
4. Post Mortem [sic]	4. Postmortem
5. Raining Blood	5. Raining Blood
6. Altar Of Sacrifice	6. Altar Of Sacrifice
7. Jesus Saves	7. Jesus Saves
8. Captor Of Sin	8. Captor Of Sin
9. Season In The Abyss [sic]	9. Seasons In The Abyss
10. Mandatory Suicide	10. Mandatory Suicide
11. War Ensemble	11. War Ensemble
12. Angel Of Death	12. South Of Heaven/Angel Of Death

Not necessarily a bad bootleg, but one of the least interesting Slayer boot CDs because of the considerable edits and loss of the live-show feeling. All of the stage banter has been removed except for a bit on track 11, and even then, you only get to hear Tom yell "War Ensemble!" and thank the crowd at the end of the song. A few songs don't have edits inbetween because they flow right into one another, but otherwise, the set has been edited so each song starts right after the other. This is the same recording as the "From the Mixing Desk 94" bootleg CD and the first part of "Monsters of Rock: Brazil 94 & More."

Tom sings the last two lines of "Mind Control" twice (he accidentally sings them in the next-to-last verse).

Yokohama 2001
Beastfeast Festival, Yokohama Arena, Kanagawa, Yokohama, Japan, Aug. 25, 2001
Label unknown SL250801
	1. Darkness Of Christ (DAT Intro)
	2. Raining Blood
	3. War Ensemble
	4. Disciple
	5. Stain Of Mind
	6. Bloodline
	7. Mandatory Suicide
	8. Hell Awaits
	9. Captor Of Sin
	10. Dead Skin Mask
	11. Seasons In The Abyss
	12. Postmortem
	13. Altar Of Sacrifice
	14. Jesus Saves (Intro)
	15. Chemical Warfare
	16. South Of Heaven
	17. Angel Of Death

Great soundquality, but very disappointing--no "Show No Mercy" songs?!?!?!?!?! Nothing to make this a particularly special show, as all of the older songs they play are live show staples.

Miscellaneous

The "Taking A Sacrifice" bootleg is a CD-R.