Megadeth – Astoria 2007

artist website

venue

impulse buy

The extensive World Tour in support of new album United Abominations has already seen Megadeth support Heaven And Hell in North America, hit some of the major European festivals, and now reach England where they played some headlining club dates around their appearance at the Download Festival.

Montreal stoner rockers Priestess accompanied the all-conquering thrashers on this five-date trek, and given the strength of their debut album Hello Master, and the fact that they’d never played England before, their arrival in London was hotly anticipated. Unfortunately, for both them and us, they suffered the same fate as most support bands do at the Astoria (and it’s smaller counterpart the Mean Fiddler). Deaf sound-man.

Just like on so many other occasions I’ve witnessed before, the mix for Priestess was drowned in bass, meaning the vocals above all else were completely inaudible. Even more unforgivably, and again as has been so many times before, the sound-man didn’t fix it. I can’t understand how a professional can stand and listen to a mix like that for a whole show and not do anything about it. So, I’ve no idea what Priestess played, because I couldn’t hear a single word of any song. The only song I know they played was debut single I Am The Night, Colour Me Black as a closer, because singer Mikey Heppner announced it.

Their performance looked OK, although they did themselves no favours by wasting precious time in a 30-minute set by letting Vince Nudo have a drum solo. I also don’t think they helped their cause by spinning several songs out into meandering and often directionless instrumental dirges (at one point they repeated the same part so often it sounded like a broken record) that not only began to get boring, but were ill-suited to an audience who had come to see technical thrash. Under lighting that could best be described as chaotic Priestess either need to fire their team or, if they didn’t bring anyone and used the in-house team, they need to hire their own.

Megadeth themselves couldn’t have hoped for a better reception. The completely-sold-out Astoria roared with appreciation as front-man Dave Mustaine and drummer Shawn Drover took the stage to launch into Sleepwalker from the new album. Monster bassist James Lomenzo (ex-Black Label Society) and Shawn’s guitarist brother Glen (the pair are also in the supremely technical Eidolon together) joined shortly after and the band didn’t let up for another two songs as classics Take No Prisoners and Skin O’ My Teeth whipped up the crowd suitably.

Two other new songs made an appearance, Washington Is Next and Gears of War, and one song from previous album The System Has Failed (Kick The Chair), and with five tracks from 1990′s Rust In Peace it was clear Dave was trying to pack in as many of his political statements as possible in the current anti-terrorism climate. The remainder of the set saw some of the usual older songs get played again, including Wake Up Dead, She Wolf, Mechanix and Symphony of Destruction, and the now standard ignoring of the Risk and horrifically-underrated The World Needs A Hero albums.

The band played well, but ultimately I don’t feel compelled to see them again. They essentially have no show to speak of, and bands who don’t have the visual attraction of pyrotechnics and so forth need either a killer setlist or a charismatic and animated front-man. Megadeth have neither. The new material weighs down the quality of the setlist, and Dave is not a good front-man. He’s a good guitar player and song-writer and has made some fantastic albums and done very well to keep Megadeth going for nearly 25 years, but a entertaining front-man he is not.

A shorter set than the band had played on their US headlining tour at the end of last year didn’t help, and some notable absences from the setlist including Trust, Return To Hangar, A Tout Le Monde (particularly as a new version of this appears on the new album), Train of Consequences and Devil’s Island, would have filled the extra half-hour needed.

They also didn’t make enough of the many duelling solos in a lot of their songs. Drover played more of the solos than I was expecting on the older songs, and a lot could have been made of that. It was attempted once, during Tornado of Souls, where Mustaine and Drover would take turns stepping to the front of the stage to play a solo, but it was done very lazily and workman-like, when a lot more could have been made of it.

Mustaine was clearly pleased with the response he got from the crowd, taking the stage by himself after the last song to thank everyone for the third or fourth time and sign off with his famous “You’ve been great, we’ve been Megadeth, good night”. The band played well overall, and several great tracks did their bit, but with poorer new songs and the lack of visual entertainment I don’t feel there’s much to keep me coming back. I think I’ll stick to the CDs.

“ no show to speak of ”

Setlist: Sleepwalker / Take No Prisoners / Skin O’ My Teeth / Wake Up Dead / Set The World A Fire / Washington Is Next / Hangar 18 / In My Darkest Hour / Kick The Chair / Gears of War > She Wolf / Tornado of Souls / Mechanix / Peace Sells // Symphony of Destruction / Holy Wars

Written by Andy Lye
More: Gigs, Thrash Metal, Megadeth