Metallica destroy at the Golden Gods, but honouring Jeff Hanneman remains focus.
Here, let me sum up the Golden Gods for you by spoiling the ending: Metallica and Rob Halford doing Rapid Fire. Like… Rock! Metallica absolutely killed their whole (four-song) finale set, and proved themselves as worthy recipients of The Ronnie James Dio Lifetime Achievement Award. Gene Simmons presented Rob Zombie with The Golden God Award, while the humble Deftones took out the 2013 Album of the Year.
Although there were plenty of big names at The Revolver Golden Gods Awards, all horns were bowed in respect to Jeff Hanneman. Kerry King, holding two drinks, announced “Jeff played in SLAYER,” with a sincere look at the crowd. “He does not want a moment of f**king silence, he wants a moment of noise! If you’ve got fists raise them up!”
The hour leading up to the awards ceremony was spent on the ‘black carpet’ with heavy metal rocker Sebastian Bach, where nominated bands got amped up for the evening and paid tribute to Hanneman’s influence. Revolver Magazine’s Josh Bernstein, Zakk Wylde, Suicide Silence, Chris Broderick and David Ellefson (Megadeth), Marilyn Manson, Alice Cooper, Corey Taylor (Slipknot, Stone Sour), Papa Emeritus II and Phil Anselmo (Down, Pantera) all spoke about the impact Hanneman and Slayer had on them as individuals and musicans. (Side note: Anselmo also hailed Brisbane’s obscure death metal quintet Portal as “The most extreme metal band in the history of modern death metal.”)
There was a serious cavalry of metal kings and rock legends both in attendance and up for nomination, and stellar live performances from some of metal’s biggest names. Opening thrash stalwarts Anthrax were joined by Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown for This Love; Chino Moreno joined The Dillinger Escape Plan for a violent rendition of Behind the Wheel that ended with bloody, fire-breathing destruction; Halestorm infected the crowd with the energetic “Whole Lotta Love” with Dave Draiman; Five Finger Death Punch played Lift Me Up with Rob Halford, before having a session with Rob Zombie and John5 for Thunder Kiss ’65; the unbelievable happened when Slipknot’s Clown and Chris Fehn joined Stone Sour for a cover of Black Sabbath’s Children of the Grave and Danzig played Mother with fellow Misfit legend Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein before the band of the evening, Metallica, took it out with Disposable Heroes, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Seek and Destroy and a return from Rob Halford.
Apart from someone at Revolver Magazine who forgot to put names inside of two of the award envelopes, the only other controversy arose for American rock band Black Veil Brides, who accepted their third Song of the Year Award for their track In The End to a loud chorus of booing. Unfortunately, they retorted with a “You-hate-us-but-we’ve-got-the-award-so-f**k-off” kind of spiel, and the whole thing ended rather awkwardly.
Quote of the night goes to Kirk Hammett accepting Metallica’s Ronnie James Dio Lifetime Achievement Award, who said:
“I would like to thank Heavy Metal for being created goddammit!”
Me too Kirk, me too.
