Megadeth
incinerated the DCU Center in Worcester like napalm fire Wednesday night,
blasting through a non-stop set of fan favorites and newer songs alike. The
single regret I have from the evening is that I didn’t get to bring my wife
this time, as we have always seen them together. Still, I got to bang my head
with one of the coolest guys in the world, meet like-minded metalheads and slam
my body into dudes twice my size! The opening acts, the ones we caught at
least, were truly amazing. Suicidal Tendencies played an intense set
interspersed with messages of positivity and self-reliance fitting to both the
youth and life’s veterans in attendance. Never really listened to them before;
well, now I’m a fan…and in Metal, that shit’s for life.
Amon Amarth took the stage in true
Viking splendour; green and purple lights illuminating the mist rising from the
sea that encircles Earth as the mighty vessel Naglfar surfaced on stage; Thor
himself seemed to be towering over us, hair gilded silver with the wisdom of Wotan’s
one eye, as vocalist Johan Hegg raised Mjolnir towards Asgard. Throughout these
two sets the mosh pit was in effect, metalheads young and old running around
and slamming into one another, helping each other up when they fell only to
collide again; it was hard to keep your footing with all the beer on the floor.
After a bunch of us helped one guy up, I was helping steady him as he seemed
quite drunk, dizzy or both. I said, “Maybe you should take a breather,” but
before I could take another breath,
he replied, “Fuck that!” and rammed
himself into the nearest fan. Tired of moshing I moved forward into the
standing crowd, remaining at the edge of the moshpit with a guy a foot taller
than me to form a wall to protect those in front of us from the surge of the
moshers.
By the time Megadeth came on I had
been getting closer and closer to the front. Four people in hazmat suits came
out to clear the stage of hazardous materials before the true fallout began as
the band came out to wild applause. As far as I could tell nobody was running
around dancing anymore: all eyes (and ears) were fixed on Dave Mustaine and his
current lineup of ground fighters. Longtime bassist and co-founder David
Ellefson was in full force. Latest guitar prodigy Kiko Loureiro, who plays on
Deth’s latest album Dystopia, wowed
the crowd with his pyrotechnics. Megadeth has always had some of the greatest
lead guitarists in thrash metal – but I suppose they’ve got to, in order to
even try and keep up with thrash’s all-time-greatest
lead guitarist – and while everyone else was watching Kiko solo I had my eyes
fixed on the man behind the music. How can Dave execute such flawless rhythm
and unique texture with so little motion? And when he cuts into a solo himself
– watch the fuck out! Current drummer Dirk Verbeuren kept the onslaught going,
driving forward relentlessly without dropping a beat as the notes fell like
shells from a magazine.
As always, Dave Mustaine & Co.
make you think while they rock you;
something reaches inside that head of yours even as you so mercilessly bang it.
The video show on screen was cool and well-thought-out, although how anyone
could take their eyes off Mustaine is inexplicable. It mainly served to
reinforce the message that was driven home by the impeccable set-list. Songs
like Peace Sells….But Who’s Buying? and
Symphony of Destruction give the
truth to the political lie we are confronted with every time we turn on the TV.
To quote the latter:
You
take a mortal man
and
put him in control;
watch
him become a god;
watch
people’s heads a-roll.
But Dave has always been the only poet in modern rock making
any significant social statement or observation of reality IMHO. Prior to
playing Holy Wars…The Punishment Due
Dave told the story, which I had heard years ago on VH1 but recently got this
fuller account from reading his excellent autobiography, of when they were
playing in Northern Ireland and Dave, quite
uncharacteristically, I might add, spoke without thinking and had to be
reminded the next day of how his incendiary flippance had lead to the band
being promptly driven from the venue in a bulletproof bus. “Erin go Bragh!” I
yelled, trying to get a rise out of Dave myself, as clearly the Metallica shirt
I was wearing hadn’t worked. Like all the classics, the performance of Holy Wars that followed was spectacular.
You can barely hear Mustaine’s trademark snarl above the sea of voices roaring
along in unison, although you can tell the true fans when only a few of us
continue chanting a particular verse, and I have to admit shamefully there were
a few stanzas even I never learned. In fact, there were several songs from
their post-’04 (the last time I saw them; The
System Has Failed the last album of theirs I bought) output that I was
completely unfamiliar with, but unlike most bands passing off new material to
disappointed, diehard fans, those rocked not a mite less hard.
Almost
thirty-six hours later, if I saw Dave and could use my voice or bend my neck, I
would bow and say,
Thank you, Dave. This
was more than a night of music. Your records were always more than a flat
surface to break up pot on. You have touched me in ways no other artist ever
has, the way an honest politician or a wise philosopher ought to, in fact. No
mere entertainer, nonetheless you put on quite a show and give the folks what
they want; even more, what we all need. Truth. Mindfulness. The courage to look
reality dead-on. The will to speak up. I hope you continue thrashing for years
to come; but it is already time the world needs to generate someone to carry on
what you have done, lest the human race fall into docility, mediocrity and
spiritual servitude irredeemably.
No words can express what you mean to us, Dave: but I had to
try anyway.
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