In one of the truly inspiring stories to emerge from Hurricane Matthew, Reeder of Metal Addicts has uncovered an eight-second video of a defiant headbanger rocking out to “Raining Blood” by Slayer while withstanding an onslaught of wind and rain brought by the storm. Shot vertically on a cell phone, the video depicts a Jacksonville, Florida resident named Lane Pittman, who stands in the middle of the street clad only in a pair of baggy black shorts. As the Slayer track, from its 1986 major label debut album Reign In Blood, blares in the background, Pittman whips his long, ginger-hued hair back and forth while holding aloft an American flag.
Pittman also posted the incredible video to his own Facebook wall. “Had a request for some hair action during the ’cane,” he writes. “So I granted it.” Pittman then adds such tell-tale hashtags as #turnt and #merica to his post. That pretty much sums it up.
The video could scarcely have been better timed, because Pittman posted it on the exact 30th anniversary of the release of Slayer’s Reign In Blood on October 7, 1986. That LP brought the music of the California thrash band to a much wider audience and, in so doing, became one of the most influential metal albums of the decade. This Hurricane Matthew video indicates that the album’s appeal has not waned in the subsequent decades. Like Pittman, it, too, is as strong as ever.
