Cumartesi 26 Mar 2011, 5:38

Thu 17 Mar – European Carnage Tour: Megadeth/Slayer - Seen both before and while I'm not terribly fond of what they've been doing recently, I figured that it would be a good investment. And I suppose it was:

Megadeth went up first. The day before they'd only thrown a short set (half an hour) due to Mustaine's illness (kidney stone apparently?). Fortunately, that was not the case today. I watched them from a bit ways away, eighth row or something (ice hockey arena) on Broderick's side. We came in so late that getting closer would've been hard without serious use of one's elbows. Mustaine seemed to be very glad to be there and enjoying himself. I imagine he was very glad about the huge turnout at his autobiography signing and the huge crowds chanting for Megadeth. The band was energetic and Broderick delivered quality solos. Mustaine's vocals were very lackluster in the higher register, but fine otherwise. Sound was stellar, everything was in balance, I'm especially glad the drums weren't in anyway overpowering. The setlist left some to be desired though. I'm tired of hearing crap like Trust, A Tout le Monde and especially Symphony of Destruction, even if they bring a lot of the dynamics of the set in. The highlight was definitely - along with the solos on Tornado of Souls and Hangar 18 - Poison Was the Cure. A superbly energetic song that came out of nowhere. I had no idea they were going to play it.

For Slayer, I got up front, second row. Not because I like them that much better, but there was room and that way I was out of the pit. On hindsight, it probably wasn't the best of ideas. The pressure there was pretty strong which didn't come as a surprise. But what surprised me was the really crappy sound though I suppose that's not surprising either. In the beginning of the set, it was hard to hear anything except the bassdrum. It drowned out much of everything else. King's guitar was also mixed way higher than Holt's, which was really annoying during his solos. They're so damn lame even with a rhythm guitar backing them, but without one they're just super annoying, breaking the flow of a song. The songs off of World Painted Blood were expectedly pure feces. The faster songs off of Seasons in the Abyss got kind of mixed into each other as well and there were three of those. In the beginning of War Ensemble, something happened to King's guitar and it cut out. Araya burst out laughing and it was fun to watch him for the first verse when he was singing with a huge grin on his face. He was definitely the most present of the two (I didn't see Holt at all basically) sounding very calm and laid back during his stage banter - of which there wasn't a whole lot - yet aggressive on his vocals. Very sympathetic character. The sound got better as the set neared the end which was great because that's where the best songs were. They ended with a set of South of Heaven/Raining Blood/Black Magic/Angel of Death (of course) so that was pretty awesome.