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Sepultura's Last Rock in Rio Show: A Derrick Green-Only Setlist and What Brazilian Metal Inherits

Foto: Markus Felix — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sepultura's Last Rock in Rio Show: A Derrick Green-Only Setlist and What Brazilian Metal Inherits

On September 5, Sepultura played Rock in Rio for the ninth and final time, and every song came from the years since 1997. The band stops on November 7 in São Paulo. This is an inventory of what stays behind.

The calendar, corrected first

A lot of coverage called Rio the penultimate Sepultura show ever. It was the last show in Rio and the penultimate in Brazil. The band’s official site still lists six dates after it: Casablanca on September 19, Montevideo on October 2, Cipolletti on October 4, Buenos Aires on October 6, Santiago on October 8 and Mexico City on October 11. Then São Paulo on November 7, and that one is the end.

Even São Paulo has moved. On September 10 the final show left Mercado Livre Arena Pacaembu for Suhai Music Hall, same date, no reason given by any outlet. The guests on that night are Krisiun, Metal Allegiance and Sacred Reich. Keep the Krisiun name in mind, because it comes back.

55 minutes at 4:40 in the afternoon

Sepultura opened the Palco Mundo on September 5, from 4:40 to 5:35 PM. Omelete’s review said the show deserved a prime-time slot, and that complaint is fair: a band closing 42 years, by Andreas Kisser’s own count, got the daylight opener.

Fourteen songs, every one recorded from 1998 onward: “Against”, “Choke”, “All Souls Rising”, “Kairos”, “Means to an End”, “The Place”, “Phantom Self”, “Convicted in Life”, “Sacred Books”, “Mind War”, “Corrupted”, “Beyond the Dream”, “Sepulnation”, after the “Tribus” intro tape. “Sacred Books” got its live debut. Four songs came from the 2026 EP The Cloud of Unknowing. Neither “Arise” nor “Roots Bloody Roots” made the set.

Setlist.fm flags it as the first time the band ever played a set built only from the Derrick Green years. Kisser framed it as a Rock in Rio exclusive, a one-off for that stage. Música Viajante reported the crowd and the press split over the omissions, and you can see why: the two songs most people outside Brazil can name were left in the van.

I think it was the right call, and the lineup on stage explains it. Kisser, Green, Paulo Xisto and Greyson Nekrutman, who replaced Eloy Casagrande before the farewell tour began (announced February 27, 2024). No Cavalera anywhere. Gloria Cavalera told TMDQA! that Max Cavalera “sequer recebeu um convite”, did not even get an invite. Kisser says he talked to Iggor and nothing moved. So the band that took the Palco Mundo was the band that has existed since 1997, and it played the songs that band wrote. That is a coherent statement, whatever you think of the shirts in the crowd.

The door

The frame for this whole piece comes from Kisser himself, in his August 26 interview with TMDQA!: “O Sepultura foi quem deu a porrada na porta pela primeira vez pra abrir essa porta, não só pro Brasil, mas pra América Latina inteira.” Sepultura was the one who first kicked that door open, and he means the door for all of Latin America, not only Brazil.

He also named who was standing outside it before them. Lemmy joined Sepultura on stage for “Orgasmatron” at a past Rock in Rio, and Kisser put it plainly: “o Motörhead é um dos grandes culpados de tudo isso”, Motörhead is one of the big culprits of all this. A door kicked open in Brazil had a British boot behind it, and the band that ends in November is honest about that.

The tour’s own name is the other tell. The site calls it a “40 Years Farewell Tour”, and Kisser describes it as a thank-you to the fans who “mantiveram essa banda relevante por tanto tempo, 42 anos.” Forty-two years is the number he uses. The math from 1984 checks out with that count, so that is the date I will use here: the band’s own.

Krisiun, who walked through and kept the receipts

If you want one band to test whether the door stayed open, Krisiun is the cleanest case, because the evidence runs in two directions.

Direction one: Rolling Stone Brasil’s profile of Krisiun lists Sepultura among the band’s influences, next to Slayer, Venom, Destruction, Motörhead and Morbid Angel. Same culprits Kisser named, plus Sepultura itself on the list. The lineage is on the record.

Direction two is less comfortable. In a Guitar Talks conversation reported by Whiplash, Krisiun credited Sepultura with being giant and with opening the doors, and then added the part that matters for a lab piece: Sepultura never brought anyone through with them. Krisiun says they were never picked to open a Sepultura show. I am paraphrasing, because the exact wording and which member said it were not pinned down in the reporting I could check, and I would rather say less than put words in a mouth.

Then look at the November 7 bill again. Krisiun opens the last Sepultura show that will ever happen. Whether that reads as a late invitation or a full circle depends on how generous you feel, but the fact itself is clean: the band that said Sepultura never took them along is on the stage for the goodbye.

That is the line I would hang the whole inheritance question on. A kicked door and a held door are different things: Sepultura’s contribution is the kick, and who held it, and for whom, is a separate ledger, with Krisiun as the first entry in it.

What actually gets inherited

Four things, and none of them is a song.

The proof that it could come from here. Before Sepultura, a metal band from Brazil touring Europe and North America with a Portuguese accent and no apology was a hypothetical. After them it was a precedent, and Kisser’s “all of Latin America” claim is the version of that precedent he wants remembered.

A band that outlived its famous lineup. Green has been the singer since 1997. The Cavalera years are what the T-shirts show, and the Green years are more than half the band’s life. Ending on a Green-only set at Rio is the band saying that out loud.

A road map. The farewell route after Rio goes Casablanca, Montevideo, Cipolletti, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Mexico City. That is a touring circuit through Latin America and North Africa that a Brazilian band built over decades, and any band from the region reading a booking sheet today inherits it whether they name Sepultura or not.

The open ledger. Krisiun’s complaint, because the point of inheriting a door is that you now have to decide whether to hold it.

The thread to pull next

Two things I want to know before November 7. First, does the Green-only set stay a Rio exclusive, or does São Paulo span every era with the Cavalera songs back in? Kisser said one-off, but the last show is the last show. Second, and this one I could not settle: is there any interview where a current Brazilian band, one that came up after 2000, names Sepultura as the reason they got a European booking? I have Krisiun on record. I want a second name with a source, and I keep coming up empty.

If you have one, I am @realrocklab on Threads and X.

Sources

In this web: Krisiun · Sepultura · Andreas Kisser · Derrick Green · Max Cavalera