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- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Megadeth and Slayer Australian Tour Review
Hey All,
I just went to this show in Melbourne on Friday Night and thought i'd post a little review:
Audience
Baised on t-shirt affiliation it seemed to be a pretty much 50/50 split between the Slaytanics and Megadeth Droogies.
Shows are always interesting at this venue as they have adult and "all ages" areas. The adult areas are licenced and the audience gets drunk, while the all-ages area fits teenages, and younger kids comming to their first show, and any adults who couldn't get into the drinking area due to a sell out.
Side View Seating
First off - a little side issue (terrible pun) about the promoters.
This show was sold out, and to make space for additional punters, they then went on to sell a 2nd release of "side view" tickets that "may have an abstructed view" (of the stage).
My issues with this were:
#1 - The "abstructed view" warning came on the actual ticket mailed out after purchase and not on the ticketing website, or if it was on the website, it was well hidden.
As a couple of people around me commented, there is a big difference between a section that is at the side of a stage and so the view is sideways and just not face on, and a section where gear and other staging equipment makes it very difficult to acutally see the performance.
#2 - The side view tickets were sold at the exact same retail price as all other tickets for the show. I'm not saying they should have been half price or anything, but when it's $90 for front row, paying $90 for some of the spots where you can't even see the stage is pretty rough.
Obviously there are hardcore fans who will be happy just to be at the show even with a crap view (as I was) who will pay it anyway, but I felt they either should have reduced the price of the bad tickets either just out of common decency, or, when there's so much demand for a show that it sells out every spot where you can see the stage, move it somewhere bigger.
Anyway both of these are issues with the promoter not the bands.
Here's a shot from my location, note the dark figures are crew members, the actual band is lit up, and you can see it's not the best vantage point for full price, but I'll say my tickets were actually amongst the best of the side view:
Double Dragon
The show was opened by support band Double Dragon.
I'm sure some of the kids in the "all ages" areas learnt some new words as the singer lead the audience in a variety of "cunt" chants but you can't complain about swearing at a metal show!
Double Dragon played well, and did what you'd expect of an opening band, warming up the crowd nicely for the next acts.
Megadeth
Megadeth came out 1 by 1 to the stage, and as you'd expect the biggest Audience pop was for Dave Mustaine.
Dave walked out to the centre of the stage, and immediately started thrashing out a super fast metal riff instantly taking the intensity in the room from 4 to 11 in about 2 seconds. After a moment or two of this shredding the rest of the band kicked in and megadeth's set was off to an awesome start.
For some reason there was strange feedback and a bit of muddy sound at first. After the completion of the second song, Dave approached the microphone and commented "How are you? We'll be right back when they fix the fucking feedback" and took the band off stage.
The house lights didn't come on and the empty stage was left in darkness.
I was worried about how this would resolve itself. Australia culturally has what we call "tall poppy syndrome" - where the tallest flowers are cut down first. What this means esentially is that normally an Aussie audience doesn't have a lot of tollerance for anything that could be considered primadona behaviour. Given my knowledge of this, and it being a metal crowd, I was a little nervous.
Thankfully the audience was well behaved, there were a few grumbles but most spending the time chanting for megadeth to return rather than tearing up the place.
After a few minutes the band came back out, and Mustane went to the trouble of explaining to the audience that he hadn't thrown a tantrum for his own benifit but rather for quality control for us punters, because we are more imporant to him than to allow us to pay to see a show we can't hear properly through bullshit sound.
This logic went over well with the crowd and the show resumed, and megadeth made up for the messing about by bring their A game.
The band was absolutely on fire. New guitarist Chris Broderick was fucking incredible and without wanting to insult the bands prior guitarists, was definately the most impressive guitarist since Marty Friedman, and quite possibly even more astounding.
Mustaine himself was also in fine form, appearing to be playing better than ever before, and sounding good vocally as well, the whole band rocking out note perfect (or in some cases more intricate) versions of the classics.
Perhaps being mindful of the mixed audience and time restrictions the band stuck very much to the classic megadeth hits playing out a virtual 'best of' setlist and only playing one cut from their current 'End Game' album.
I think some of the megafans would have liked to hear some more of the new record, but at the same time, you can't complain when the band was nailing so many of the classic songs with such authority and commanding stage presence.
The audience responce was such that you'd think you were in an only megadeth show, although you'd expect a lot of crossover in the fanbase anyway.
Overall megadeth was absolutely asskicking and I'd encourage anyone who is able to catch them on this tour to check them out. They're definately at the top of their game.
Slayer
It would be tough for any band to follow an act like Megadeth had just put on, but Slayer seemed primed to do it, with an impressive lighting and stage show mapped out, right down to flames burning on the guitar rigs.
Unfortunately, through no fault of their own, they just wern't up to the task on the night due to illness. The band came out with the usual flourish and ripped into metal insanity straight away to the delight of the slayer fans.
However, there was a strange absence of part of the vocals for the first song, finally after the first number, the singer has managed to squeak out that he has lost his voice and won't be singing much tonight.
The band continued on with the set anyway, peforming some numbers compeltely instrumental, at other times with the singer attempting to render the odd chorus or bridge vocally. Midway through the set they resorted to bring out some helpers - enlisting the singer of Double Dragon to help out, and also another person who I assume was someone from the crew.
Metal heads being loyal fans as they are, and Australian audiences being somewhat pragmatic, "hey, we all get sick", the crowd went along with it and made the most of it, and much of the slayer fanatics in the audience were still banging their heads, slam dancing and appeared to be generally enjoying themselves all the same.
Although it couldn't really be denied that the show clearly didn't have the sort of energy it would have on a normal night, the band stopping for long pauses between numbers, presumably to see if the singer was still able to contiune to peform at all.
The guitatists were ripping out some tastey metal solos, but it was all very strange with no vocals for much of the time.
Overall talking to other audience members after the gig I got mixed reactions. Some people felt respectuful that Slayer had given it a go, and done their best for us rather than "pussying out" and cancelling the show, while others were feeling somewhat frustrated that they'd paid full price for what they felt was 3/4 of a show and should have at least been offered the option of refunding.
For my part, it's difficult for me to assess, as I'm much more of a megadeth fan than a slayerhead anyway, I could respect that Slayer fought on for their fans despite the illness, no doubt making many of the metal heads happy, but megadeth had been so good that I must say I would have prefered if megadeth had simply played longer, or, if given the illness issue, they had reversed the line up and closed the show.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Megadeth and Slayer Australian Tour Review
update:
That was the Melbourne show....two days ago....I just read this morning:
"SLAYER CANCEL ADELAIDE SHOW DUE TO ILLNESS / MEGADETH TO PERFORM FULL SET We regret to announce that Slayer vocalist Tom Araya was advised by his doctors not to perform at tonight's show at the Thebarton Theatre in Adelaide due to severe laryngi...tis. Co-headliners Megadeth have confirmed that they will perform an extended set at the Thebarton tonight."
So it would seem the Slayer illness has worsened. I'd like to be in adeliade to see medageth rip up the show for longer!
- metallex78
- Rep: 194
Re: Megadeth and Slayer Australian Tour Review
Thanks for the review, do you know what Megadeth's exact setlist was?
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Megadeth and Slayer Australian Tour Review
Thanks for the review, do you know what Megadeth's exact setlist was?
Not exact cos i'm a forgetful bastard, always get into shows and forget when I get home...but I remember them playing:
In My Darkest Hour
Wake Up Dead
Symphony of Destruction
Hanger 18
Headcrusher
Holy Wars
There were heaps more but they arn't comming to mind right now!
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Megadeth and Slayer Australian Tour Review
Found the full setlist online:
Set The World Afire
Wake Up Dead
Devil's Island
She-Wolf
Hangar 18
In My Darkest Hour
Rattlehead
Head Crusher
Tornado Of Souls
Symphony Of Destruction
Peace Sells
Holy Wars
Definately a great peformance....I'd recomend anyone go see them when the Endgame usa tour kicks off.
Re: Megadeth and Slayer Australian Tour Review
I'd like to see Megadeth live sometime. It would be cool to see Dave Mustaine in real life.
I have seen Slayer live once and they didn't really impress me. I really enjoy Tom Araya as a person but that's about it.
Their music just isn't for me.
Re: Megadeth and Slayer Australian Tour Review
Great review of what sounds like a terrible show. That megadeth setlist is a joke. Could have easily added a few more tunes.
That Slayer set sounds absurd, and they should have canceled and played at a later date.
I saw both these bands in their prime, and thank God for that. I wouldn't bother with either one of these bands anymore. Wouldn't mind seeing Slayer open for GNR though.
