Slayer played «Reign In Blood» in full in Mexico City on Wednesday 21 October, 40 years after the album’s release.
The band headlined the Palacio de los Deportes and were joined by Power Trip. They first played 13 songs from across their catalogue and then the ten tracks of «Reign In Blood» in album order, closing with «Raining Blood».
“`The setlist was the same as the first full performance, on 4 September at the Mystic Lake Amphitheater in Shakopee, Minnesota. Two days later they repeated it at Rocklahoma, in Pryor, Oklahoma.
On stage were Tom Araya on vocals and bass, Kerry King and Gary Holt on guitars and Paul Bostaph on drums. It is the same line-up as the farewell tour that ended in 2019. Slayer returned to the stage in 2024 and in 2025 played a handful of big shows, among them six songs at Black Sabbath’s «Back To The Beginning» at Villa Park in Birmingham, on 5 July 2025.
The album came out on 7 October 1986 on Def Jam. It was their third and their first with Rick Rubin producing, while the release was delayed because of concerns over the artwork and the lyrics. The opening «Angel Of Death» describes Josef Mengele’s experiments at Auschwitz and drew accusations that the band supported Nazism. The members denied it repeatedly, saying they were interested in the subject, not in adopting it.
It was their first album to enter the Billboard 200, at No. 94, and it went gold with the RIAA on 20 November 1992, for more than 500,000 copies in the US. Kerrang! later called it the heaviest album of all time. In the month of the anniversary the band released a new vinyl edition, and the album’s drummer, Dave Lombardo, said recently that it still gives him chills.
Their next appearances in 2026: 24 October at Sick New World in Fort Worth, 13 and 14 November at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, and in December in South America with Kreator — 5 December in Bogotá, 10 December in Santiago, 14 December in Buenos Aires and 17 December in São Paulo.
