Megadeth – That One Night Live In Buenos Aires

artist website

publisher

impulse buy

Image Entertainment
Produced by Dave Mustaine & Jeff Balding

This is the audio counterpart to Megadeth’s recent Gold-certified live DVD and will finally see release in September, six months after the visual version. The DVD of this show was almost flawless.

Almost because, as addressed in the review, the concert flow was needlessly interrupted a couple of times with incomplete clips of Dave Mustaine and Glen Drover playing acoustic songs outside their hotel for waiting fans. Not only is this not an issue on the CD version, but we also get three tracks which were left off of the DVD, namely Die Dead Enough, Angry Again and Skin O’ My Teeth (why these were missing from the DVD has not been revealed), all with the same impeccable sound as on the DVD.

The first track sounds rather messy, which isn’t surprising because it’s Blackmail The Universe from The System Has Failed (the album the band were touring at the time) which is a rather untidy attempt to recapture the fast-paced days of Rust In Peace, but this isn’t a good indicator of the rest of the album. The classic and often under-appreciated Set The World Afire from So Far, So Good, So What? and Skin O’ My Teeth follow it up to right the balance, and a string of further classic tracks make up the rest of the set with the occasional new (at the time) song in between. The thunderous Kick The Chair (a song I have changed my mind about since first hearing it) and catchy Die Dead Enough hold their own amidst Symphony of Destruction, Reckoning Day and the epic Tornado of Souls more so than Blackmail The Universe, which is quickly forgotten, and Something I’m Not which finds itself sandwiched between the far superior Kick The Chair and crowd favourite Trust.

This show itself is noteworthy because Mustaine had announced it would be the show where he would reveal his decision on the future of the band. The decision was, of course, to continue as Megadeth, rather than release a solo album, and to mark the occasion he played Coming Home, the Japanese bonus track from The World Needs A Hero, temporarily renamed Coming Home To Argentina, with appropriately altered lyrics.

As a live album That One Night isn’t as good as Rude Awakening, the double live album which resulted from 2001 tour for The World Needs A Hero (although the DVD this time is much better than the Rude Awakening DVD). The tracklist isn’t as interesting and the band aren’t as heavy. I also think the Mustaine-DeGrasso-Ellefson-Petrelli line-up of Megadeth was better than the current one. However, it is still an excellent live document of the current band (who have since replaced bassist James McDonough with ex-Black Label Society man James Lomenzo) and is free of the minor irritations that threaten to spoil the DVD. The addition of the extra tracks, thus completing the gig, only go towards making it a even more attractive proposition for fans, even if they do already have the DVD.

“ excellent live document ”

Tracklist: CD 1 Jet Intro / Blackmail The Universe / Set The World Afire / Skin O’ My Teeth / Wake Up Dead / In My Darkest Hour / Die Dead Enough / She Wolf / Reckoning Day / A Tout Le Monde / Angry Again
CD 2 Hangar 18/Return To Hanger / I’ll Be there / Tornado of Souls / Trust / Something I’m Not / Kick The Chair / Coming Home To Argentina / Symphony of Destruction / Peace Sells / Holy Wars

Photo(s): Image Entertainment | www.image-entertainment.com

Written by Andy Lye
More: Live Albums, Thrash Metal, Megadeth