It's taken me about two days to recover and compile my thoughts on Saturday's Megadeth concert. As some of you may know from experience, heavy metal concerts tend to kidnap your brain, beat the crap out of it, and finally set it free with a nasty hangover as ransom. The aural onslaught which waterboards your cranium and leaves you begging for mercy is, of course, purely voluntary and even expected when you pay good money to see Megadeth live. But Gigantour featuring Megadeth was no exception to the rule of metal concerts just kicking ass beyond all belief and leaving your senses in utter disarray. In fact, it was one of the best concerts I've been to in a long time and my soul is finally being mailed back from the gates of hell, postage paid for 666 cents. Here is why:
Megadeth is one of those rare bands which simply performs better live. It's hard to explain this concept if you haven't experienced it, but some bands just sound better when they're wailing away on a five minute power rift being amplified 1,000 times by on-stage speakers. For the imaginary fan, this guitar solo doesn't sound the same when you're blasting it on your car's stereo system, and the true energy or meaning of the song is oftentimes lost in translation. As Metallica would say, “Sad but True."
But Symphony of Destruction, Megadeth's seminal ballad which propelled them to fame and metal hysteria among the uneducated masses, took on a whole new level of awesomeness and intensity when I heard it blasting from Mustaine's customized Les Paul. It was as though the snarling lyrics:
You take a mortal man,
And put him in control
Watch him become a god,
Watch peoples heads aroll
Aroll...
...just propelled the crowd into total mayhem and chaos, and yet strangely left Mustaine in control of an army of metal supplicants. Imagine over 5 thousand Megadeth acolytes head-banging in unison, screaming the lyrics with blood-thirsty cries, and quickly unfurling mosh pits of insansity even wrestler Mankind would be hesitant to enter. And then imagine the gates of hell opening wide and the maw of Satan's lair becoming visible to the crowd in the springtime dew. Think Indiana in the Temple of Doom when he looks down on the cult sacrificing that innocent worker.
And then suddenly you hear the Symphony ringing through the quickening darkness, Dave Mustaine’s siren call to his followers, which prompts his minions to enter the maw which gapes wide and beckons for your entry. This is scary stuff when you hear it blasting at 100,000 decibals on a temperate Saturday evening and Mustaine just kept delivering like a madman. It was fucking unreal, no doubt about it.
As you can probably imagine, the song and the gates of hell had a huge affect on the crowd. They quickly bowed down to Mustaine and as the song hit a finale, he literally morphed into a god of rock and roll before our very eyes. After the song I looked over to my friend Nick, his eyes wide and pupil's dilating, and he said:
"Dude, Mustaine sold his soul to the Devil to play like that."
I replied, "My thoughts exactly."
You can’t buy that shit on an album....you have to see them live. Take my word for it.
Megadeth is one of those rare bands which simply performs better live. It's hard to explain this concept if you haven't experienced it, but some bands just sound better when they're wailing away on a five minute power rift being amplified 1,000 times by on-stage speakers. For the imaginary fan, this guitar solo doesn't sound the same when you're blasting it on your car's stereo system, and the true energy or meaning of the song is oftentimes lost in translation. As Metallica would say, “Sad but True."
But Symphony of Destruction, Megadeth's seminal ballad which propelled them to fame and metal hysteria among the uneducated masses, took on a whole new level of awesomeness and intensity when I heard it blasting from Mustaine's customized Les Paul. It was as though the snarling lyrics:
You take a mortal man,
And put him in control
Watch him become a god,
Watch peoples heads aroll
Aroll...
...just propelled the crowd into total mayhem and chaos, and yet strangely left Mustaine in control of an army of metal supplicants. Imagine over 5 thousand Megadeth acolytes head-banging in unison, screaming the lyrics with blood-thirsty cries, and quickly unfurling mosh pits of insansity even wrestler Mankind would be hesitant to enter. And then imagine the gates of hell opening wide and the maw of Satan's lair becoming visible to the crowd in the springtime dew. Think Indiana in the Temple of Doom when he looks down on the cult sacrificing that innocent worker.
And then suddenly you hear the Symphony ringing through the quickening darkness, Dave Mustaine’s siren call to his followers, which prompts his minions to enter the maw which gapes wide and beckons for your entry. This is scary stuff when you hear it blasting at 100,000 decibals on a temperate Saturday evening and Mustaine just kept delivering like a madman. It was fucking unreal, no doubt about it.
As you can probably imagine, the song and the gates of hell had a huge affect on the crowd. They quickly bowed down to Mustaine and as the song hit a finale, he literally morphed into a god of rock and roll before our very eyes. After the song I looked over to my friend Nick, his eyes wide and pupil's dilating, and he said:
"Dude, Mustaine sold his soul to the Devil to play like that."
I replied, "My thoughts exactly."
You can’t buy that shit on an album....you have to see them live. Take my word for it.
1 comment:
Man, that is fucking awesome. It may take me two days to recover my thoughts from that post.
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