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Magazine
Rock festival
Not Megadeth enough
TUSHAR MENON
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Neither were the audience great enough. The first Rock’n India Festival in Bangalore was merely interesting when it could have been inspiring.
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Photo: G.P. Sampath Kumar
Not quite there: Megadeth live in Bangalore.
It could have been such a good show. Everything was right. Overcast skies without any rain, two separate stages for the opening and headlining acts separated by a few hundred metres, an eclectic selection of opening acts, Megadeth headlining and an a
bundant supply of drinking water. But the first Rock ’n India Festival in Bangalore on March 14 was merely interesting when it could have been inspiring.
Dave Mustaine’s standard line at the end of a Megadeth concert is, “You’ve been great. We’ve been Megadeth.” Neither rang true. We were not great and they were not enough Megadeth.
For the second time in as many years, I’ve had to leave the front row of a concert in Bangalore after arriving 12 hours before. This time it was because I was physically assaulted by the guy next to me, who claimed I was “pulling” him or some such nonsense. He was snorting a white powder that was not glucose, so better counsels prevailed and I left him alone. The problem of morons who think a rock concert is an excuse to get stoned is one that needs to be addressed. It is telling that one of the biggest cheers came when Machine Head frontman Rob Flynn said, “Someone in the front row is smoking a lot of marijuana.”
False hopes
Letting go of the barricade also meant I had to give up any hope of remaining near the front through the Megadeth set. I consoled myself with the false idea that I’d be able to get a good place near the sound console with excellent sound and enjoy a nice long show from there.
Megadeth’s first ever performance in India was over in the blink of an eye. There is a difference between leaving an audience hungry for more and short-changing them. Megadeth should have known the difference. Their “headlining” set was 70 minutes long. That, unfortunately, wasn’t even the worst part. Sound problems dogged their performance from the beginning, with Shawn Drover’s drum intro to “Sleepwalker” and Chris Broderick’s guitar completely inaudible. It took half the show for the sound levels to sort themselves out, a luxury that such a short set could ill afford.
Broderick is technically the best equipped guitarist Megadeth has ever had, as he demonstrated with his famous five-octave, eight-finger tapping arpeggio solo before launching into “Hangar 18”. The second half of the show was half an hour of the finest guitar work that many of us will ever see. There was a collective gasp at Broderick’s rendition of Marty Friedman’s magnum opus guitar solo from “Tornado of Souls”. It was almost spiritual.
Dave Mustaine is famous for his ability to connect with the audience. It’s what has endeared him to a loyal fan base ever since his days with Metallica. When he articulated his new attitude towards performing, it really hurt. During the premature encore, with schoolteacher-like condescension, he gave us two options: he could either play two more songs without talking in between or talk and play one more. What on earth has happened to Dave Mustaine? We weren’t asking him for long monologues or bitter tirades, but a few words now and then might have been nice. Rob Flynn connected with the audience without having to cut short their set. Even Machine Head’s sound technicians had a better rapport with the audience during the sound check.
The separate stages meant that we could choose where to line up. Not surprisingly, everybody went straight to the main stage. Casino Blues got things underway and, at their request, a large group gathered in front. Those of us who had got to the venue several hours earlier were loathe to give up our hard fought positions in front of the larger stage. We sat down and enjoyed what turned out to be a very engaging show on the other stage. Prestorika got the best response among the early bands with their combination of heavy double bass driven riffs and guitar pyrotechnics. In spite of Junkyard Groove not being at the top of their game, their set was well received.
Mother Jane’s performance was captivating and, unfortunately, the last that I could comfortably watch from where I was because for some reason, after they were done, everyone stood up and turned towards the main stage as if something was about to happen there. Unable to move as the crowd congealed and buried me, I could not experience Thermal and a Quarter, Millennium and Pentagram’s sets, such was the pulverising I was being subjected to two hours before Machine Head were even scheduled to be on. Struggling simultaneously to breathe and prevent my chest from collapsing under the enormous pressure is not the ideal way to enjoy a concert, but I kept telling myself that it would be worth it and that I just had to stay there.
Well-received
Two hours later Rob Flynn and the rest of Machine Head walked on stage to the taped intro to “Clenching the Fists of Dissent”, and the crowd erupted. A flurry of heavy guitaring and pummeling double bass drumming from the acclaimed Dave McClain followed amidst brutal head-banging, jumping, screaming and moshing. As anticipated, “Aesthetics of Hate” was the highlight of their show. In a dramatic moment during its technical instrumental passage, a single bolt of lightning appeared in the distant almost purple sky behind guitarists Flynn and Demmel as they stood back to back. They left the stage an hour later to a tumultuous ovation which they had clearly not expected. The second they were off stage, the indistinct din of the crowd turned into a chant for Megadeth.
So there it was. Walking away from the concert venue, past the bungee jumpers and ice cream salesman in the carnival area, I didn’t know quite what to make of what I had just experienced. As a die-hard Megadeth fan, in spite of all the technical glitches, I would still have gone home satisfied if the set had been just half an hour longer. Hopefully Mustaine will have regained his spirit and aggression by the time they come here next.
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