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Megadeth/Volbeat/Lacuna Coil Concert Review, Austin, TX 3-03-12

Motorhead cancelled their last remaining dates from Mustaine’s Gigantour because of some lung and throat issues that Lemmy was having. What a pisser. I love seeing Motorhead live and coupling them with Megadeth is a super extra bonus! But no luck. Get well, Lem. Next time!

We missed Lacuna Coil completely and I wasn’t bothered by that at all. Not a fan in the least.

Volbeat comes on and they weren’t what I thought I remembered listening to online. It was just “happy fun rock”. First few songs kind of reeled me in then every song after that started sounding the same. I was over it

and couldn’t wait for them to stop playing. Annoyingly they kept doing little 5 second spats of “Ace of Spades” and it was utterly annoying. Then at the need of their set they broke into a Slayer snippet. I thought it was silly. But hey, when you need a crowd to get excited, what do you play? SLAYER. They’re singer was good, however, and reminded me a lot of Dave Maneketti of Y&T. The only reason I even mildly wanted to check them out was because Hank Shermann of

Hank Shermann

Mercyful Fate fame was paying guitar for this tour. Every once in a whole you’d hear a classic Shermann fill or something, but overall he didn’t do much. Maybe just trying to pay the bills with them? Who knows. At least he’s doing something, eh? Again, I was ready for them to stop.

Time for Megadeth. I love them for the most part. Sure, I stayed away from the Friedman era, but the albums they have done since 2000 have all been really good. Dave Mustaine, as I have stated before, is one of the best metal guitarists on the planet. No, you won’t get the neo-classical widdly-diddly stuff, but the man has chops and again tonight he was on. The band sounded great, except for the drummer. I’ll get to him in a bit.

Dave’s voice sounded good, his playing was fucking great and he just brought a really positive energy to the whole show. Dave Ellefson did as well. They both looked like they were having fun. Throw a shredder like Chris Broderick in the mix and you’ve got a potent combination of musicians. Mustaine and Broderick are from 2 totally different schools of guitar playing. Chris is a technical shredder where Dave is just a true player and a riff machine. You can feel the passion in his riffs and solos. They were just great and I am so glad I got to see them again.

Now, on to Shawn Drover and his drumming. I’ll go ahead and say it, Dave should find a better drummer. Drover is such a stale and boring player. I’ve said that since the first time I saw him in Megadeth. Not to mention the dude doesn’t play a lot of the old stuff correctly. Personally I think he ruins Peace Sells. He’s like

Dave's Heavenly light?

the Matt Sorum of metal. What a fucking bore! Jimmy Degrasso was more interesting and even Nick Menza, who I also thought was stale, was a step up from Drover. BORING!

The Megadeth setlist was pretty good, but as always I was hoping for some more older material. I think

because of Dave’s religious convictions, we’ll never see Looking Down The Cross or the Conjuring live ever again. Too bad. I was also really hoping for My Last Words, but no luck. They did play Set The World Afire, Peace Sells, Wake Up Dead and In My Darkest Hour. Some of the other shows also got Hook In Mouth, but oh well. They did mix the setlist up from all of the other shows which was cool.

Again, the band brought such a positive energy that you couldn’t help but get into it. And you know what?

DAVE MUSTAINE > METALLICA

There, I said it. For as much as Dave has never let go of being thrown out of the biggest “metal” band on the planet, I’d argue that he’s written better albums continuously than they have. Popularity is one thing and Metallica surely has that game won. But quality of music and musicianship is, in my opinion of course, Mustaine’s game.

It was such an awesome show and I can’t wait to see them again…and again…and again.

Setlist: