Global Domination | Witnessed | Metallica, Megadeth, 2007

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Witnessed

Metallica, Megadeth, 2007

14/05/09 || The Duff

Where: Wembley for Metallica, Astoria for Megadeth, London, UK.
When: Years ago; yes, I suffer from sloth.
Why: First time to see both of the greatest bands to have existed.

Note: After wrestling for days with Text-pattern, I gave up on uploading photos of the bands you all know too well anyways; hope my writing is enough to pull you through. For the record, I had an amusing pic of a cooked crab for Robert Trujillo, although I wouldn’t say this to his face.

This live review is going to be a little unusual, yet entirely expected if you’ve been into metal at all these past five minutes. Having seen two of the big four in little under a month, I decided to write this one off as a competition between the two bands witnessed, responsible for one of the most gossiped-about feuds in metal history – the frontman of one used to be in the other before things went all apeshit followed by his being kicked out only to have him continue his “other band’s” career with a quarter of the success his old bandmates later went on to garner. Still, if you ask me, a quarter of ninety million records sold Worldwide ain’t really a reason to be wringing your eyes out; not so for Dave Mustaine, it would appear, as he seems still to this day regretful of being chucked out of Metallica, now renowned as probably the greatest metal/rock band of all time (certainly the most successful). The band’s that ‘deth and ‘tallica played with respectively shall be tackled somewhere in between – I haven’t thought that far ahead yet, so bear with me or get a fistful of fuck with a side-order of raw onions!

Truth is I’d be doing metal a disservice if I didn’t cover both live performances in such a way. On the one hand, we have a band that hasn’t been metal for a long fucken time now, and even its attempts at reinvigorating its music falls flat on its face. Then we have Metallica (hey-o)… no, then we have Megadeth, a band that, although not nearly as great as with the earliest part of its career, still has its heart in its roots, even if the songwriting has become hit and miss; you can’t say they’re any worse than recent Judas Priest, so kudos to Dave for still doing what he loves and what got him into the scene (to some degree) in the first place some twenty-five years on.

Mastodon were up first at the Wimbledon gig, and they played an astounding set. The sound wasn’t all that great, presenting doubts as to how Metallica would come across in the venue, but the tracks “Iron Tusk”, “Fire Ants”, “Sleeping Giant”, “Blood and Thunder” and a handful more tracks (I think “The Wolf is Loose”, “Circle of Cysquatch” and “Crystal Skull” – it was some time ago now), made me many a time glance over at my comrades with an appreciative raise of the eyebrows, only to find them mildly impressed.

I was fruitlessly attempting to convince them that on disc and in a smaller, more personal venue (and possibly a larger time-slot) they would undoubtedly come across a monstrous, vicious rejuvenation to the metal scene, but almost expressionless faces became all the more frustrating as I reluctantly succumbed to their indifference. As one of their biggest fans, I was not let down, and all the more grateful they were given the reception they deserved from a crowd possibly not too accustomed to their music.

Machine Head were up next, and as much as I was sorely let down by “The Blackening”, and consequently only mildly acquainted with their classic era (the few tracks I could recall from “Burn My Eyes” were well delivered), they put on an impressive live show. Rob Flynn has clearly been living metal for some time now, and his performance as a frontman was well met by yours truly – other tracks they performed other than “Old Man” and the expected “Shot Gun Blast” included “Anthems of Hate” and “Empirium”, amongst maybe one or two others.

The outfit as a whole sounded very tight, as much as I may have been put off by Rob’s fellow guitarist bopping about on one leg, which is clearly not very metal and likely to send shivers down the spine of any Machine Head fan dreading a track from “The Burning Red” or “Supercharger”, and the moshpit one of the most impressive I’ve witnessed (quite a circle-pit, if I recall correctly). Overall, as much as I don’t pay too much attention to the band’s progress, Machine Head played an invigorating show that left many satisfied.

H.I.M have always been a band that I could not tolerate, and although there may well be its fair share of supporters amongst the Global Domination ranks, what little I had experienced from their music videos was not enough to entice me into the stadium upon their appearance. What gave me sufficient gratification in this regard was that the majority of people I passed upon were complaining about just how unlistenable they were.

What I could pick up on through the arena doors was some excessively drab music accompanied by some very well executed solos, and a very unnecessary cover of “Tainted Love”, which isn’t a song I’m fond of in the slightest and seemed to add to the band’s ineptitude at winning the crowd over. To think that people sporting “St. Anger” shirts were turning this stuff down speaks volumes as to the quality of the music. Fuck H.I.M., or as the English would say, “fack ‘.I.M., and ‘is cant of ah mavva” (I… I don’t know how they communicate, but it would seem evolution hasn’t intervened, just sat back and enjoyed the show; curse you natural selection and your inability to cross geographical barriers like “water” – why can’t you be more like A.I.D.S., natural selection?).

Fly back a couple of months to The Astoria, and I’m walking into Priestess’ set (I clearly didn’t think up this review’s layout too well), not knowing what to expect after Dave’s repeatedly turning away groups with any Satanic-leanings whatsoever, disallowing them from sharing the stage with his band due to his love of all things Jesus-y. Well, the Priestess show turned out to be quite the awesome experience, a combination of Sabbath, Thin Lizzy and Led Zeppelin, I was very impressed, even if unmotivated to follow-up on any of their efforts after the gig. The guys appeared very talented, quite “clean”, but at the same time heavy and full of spirit.

That sums it up pre-knuckle down to the dust/cocks to the grindstone phase of the review – now for the ultimate match-off between two rival bands (as a forewarning, this isn’t going to be an entertaining read):

Okay, Metallica played an awesome set (no “St. Anger” material as far as I can remember, and only “Fuel” and “The Memory Remains” taken from their less than stellar period – “Load” and “Reload” still kick ass though, bitches), and really opened my eyes as to how close these guys remain to their metal roots – their studio work is nothing short of half-hearted and insignificant these days, but their spirit and ability to deliver their classic material just as strong as it’s been the past fifteen years or so; I was more than blown away by how professional they sounded (don’t know what the case was with Mastodon, but Metallica’s sound was larger than I could have hoped for), yet also by how much energy they put into the show – not what I was expecting going on some discontented opinions from metal forums and the likes.

The venue was huge, making it less personal than the Megadeth set (for example, during the breakdown riff of “Wake Up Dead”, the crowd was making the venue shake jumping all in unison – quite a moment where I think every man in the room had an erection and every sweet dame was moist), but when night fell, it being an outside venue, there was still a very special atmosphere a-lingerin’, a different kind of bond between band and crowd. The million and one lighters mighta had something to do with it, but hey… Many lulz were passed about when James flicked a pick into the crowd and told the guy to “now share with your friends” – for the size of the place, they seemed to reach a great deal of people.

All the classics were covered, need I go into them? “One”, “Master of Puppets”, “Battery”, “Enter Sandman”, “Sad But True”, “Wherever I May Roam”, “Creeping Death”, “… And Justice For All”, “Sanitarium”, one of the instrumentals, all the other regular tracks like “Fade to Black”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, a couple of free-jams, Christ, you really need me to go on? Probably got half of it wrong, but you all know the drill by now. The musicianship was all aces; I don’t think there have ever been doubts about James’ abilities as a guitar player, but Kirk has come under flak for some years now, and a show like this one should have been enough to silence such criticism even if he did slip-up on the rare occasion. Lars still had short limbs and Trujillo was doing that ridiculous crab-walk, so points lost, but otherwise, the Metallica show shot my tubby tits off.

The Megadeth show benefited from everything you’d expect from a smaller venue – a tighter sound, a better visual experience (despite the lack of pyrotechnics that were all over the Metallica gig) and consequently a more personal rapport with the band, the smell of stale sweat emanating from your fellow-metal brethren at either of your sides, up against your crotch and probably up inside your anus; yes, these are all pros, offering a better sense of connectedness. Other ways in which the ‘deth were better than the best-selling metal band in history is that, as all of you should know, Dave and Co. write better material than Metallica – maybe the riffs aren’t as good, but the arrangements and complexity of the music makes it stand over what Metallica have to offer, in the mind’s of many including my own.

Dave Mustaine, the band’s rhythm guitarist, is better than Metallica’s lead guitarist, and it was an absolute treat seeing the guy thrash n’ shred for the crowd. Then we have the band’s at the time newly acquired lead guitar player Glen Drover, who is a technically flawless guitar player, akin to players like Rusty Cooly and Jeff Loomis – I can’t say I was overly fond of his style, seeing as even the toughest licks were about as difficult for him to play as masturbating blind-folded (a player needs to exhibit some physical exertion to the shit he’s playing for less of a mechanical feel, in my mind, unless you’re the truly gifted like Steve Vai), but the guy was still the icing on the cake made up of old-school thrash tracks I’d grown up on, Dave Mustaine and anal violation from at least three of the guys standing behind me – lucky beans.

The set-list included, amongst others, “Tornado of Souls”, “Wake Up Dead”, “Peace Sells”, “Sweating Bullets” (I think), “Kick the Chair”, “Washington is Next”, “Blackmail the Universe” (again, I think), “She-Wolf” (maybe…), “Sleepwalker”, “Polaris” (haha, goddamn can’t remember), “In My Darkest Hour” and of course “Holy Wars” – again, you all know the drill by now, my memory isn’t so hot, and you can’t hold me to any of this; the review, in short, is entirely pointless save for allowing me artistic expression, keeping me at home and not out in the open pillaging and raping. So who wins after leaving you breathless and wanting more, huh? Probably The ‘Deth – there ya go. A 10 out of 10 for everything.

Witnessed