Playing Studio 54 was a real treat; I had heard about that club and the whole Saturday Night Fever disco era, so for the band to play that club was pretty damn cool. For it to be Venom, Slayer, and Exodus, that was definitely the end of the disco era and the beginning of the thrash metal era.
Dave Lombardo / Slayer interview, Decibel, 2017
EXODUS, SLAYER and VENOM played live on this day in 1985 at famous disco nightclub Studio 54, New York.
Footage of SLAYER and EXODUS was released on Video by Combat and Neat Records as Combat Tour Live: The Ultimate Revenge.
We'd been friends with Slayer since we first met them when they came up to play the Bay Area. Venom were heroes of ours and Venom knew it; they treated us really well. They had their pyro and all that stuff. It was a lot of fun and a lot of ball-breaking on everybody's part. It was a blast. One of those things I'll cherish, you know?
Gary Holt / Exodus interview, Decibel, 2017
VENOM - who were touring without Mantas - were not filmed but the Video does include two backstage interview segments from Studio 54 and earlier clips of "Witching Hour" (1982) and "Countess Bathory" (1984).
The Venom footage is actually from the UK. The only thing of Venom on the Ultimate Revenge video that came from Studio 54 was the interview and the [pyro] explosion. And the reason for that is because the guys who came down to shoot the show were supposed to pay the management because they were gonna release the VHS video. As you know, this is called the music business. And they refused to pay. They tried to say, "We'll pay you after the show." [Laughs] But we're from England. We don't fall for that one. We sent everyone who talks like that to Australia many years ago-on a boat. But they didn't think we'd be able to stop them, so we took the ax from next to the fire extinguisher and just chopped all their cables. So they recorded Exodus and Slayer, but all they got of Venom was the bang. Later on, Neat Records sold them a couple of songs from the show from England. [Laughs] Venom don't like getting ripped off. Whether Exodus or Slayer got paid, I've no idea. But I very much doubt it. It was a shame that the video doesn't have Venom footage from Studio 54. We weren't asking that much-they would've made ten times that off the video sales. So it was just greed.
Conrad "Cronos" Lant / Venom interview, Noisey, 2014