Dave Mustaine made a fan out of me with two actions. Neither musical.
1. He invited his 14 year old daughter on stage and sang Happy Birthday too her and gave her a hug. "If you ever wanted to know what a young Mustaine looks like…."
2. At the encore Dave mentioned they had only time for one song because MSG is a Union shop. Then he wondered if we had decided who we were voting for and then he added if we were all in the Union, it wouldn't matter who we voted for because we couldn't be fucked with.
Valid point.
I knew Mustaine wrote songs about politics, but I find Megadeth difficult to concentrate because Mustaine has one of the most annoying voices in metal. Fired from Metallica he formed Megadeth, a Metallica little brother who started thrash and now seem more often like prog rock. On tour to push their 13th album, Thirteen, they are played the eaxact set you knew they would. Greatest hits, plus three new ones in the middle, plus "A Tout Le Monde" featuring a duet with Lacuna Coil's Cristina Scabbia.
In person, Dave's voice is still awfully weak for a metal guy, he can't scream, and he can't hit the high notes, and he has no growl. But his guitar playing is excellent, on "Whose Life (Is It Anyway)", he is fast, he is fluid, and he plays the bottleneck like a champ, trilling out notes like a prog rock Jesus. On the aptly name "Guns Booze And Drugs" he makes you wonder why he doesn't use back up singers more often and throughout, the sleep, too short and not loud enough set he makes sense of a "Dave Mustaine Is God" tee-shirt I noticed.
Yes, the sound is way too low again. All night long I was gagging to hear it louder. Three people sitting next to me decided to have a conversation during the Megadeth set and I could hear em. How is this possible?
It has a lot to say about the nights music that the acoustic problems didn't derail the night. And a lot to say about Mustaine that I walked out a fan.
Grade: A-