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Rating: 9:45 AM. - OOh, should we go to Rho to see Megadeth etc.?
- Yeah, sure, maybe, I'll let you know... when is it?
- TODAY! Don't you remember? I told you!
- Well, I'm home today, do you have the tickets?
- I do, but you don't.
- Perfect. We'll meet at your place at 11.
At exactly 12:00 noon, all four of us were almost there; but by 12:30 we were already facing the complex and fundamental issue for those going to a concert: THE SANDWICHES. We decided to have a couple of beers and do a food debriefing while the only girl (and the only serious person) handled cutting the bread and cold cuts.
We're off. Who's driving?
- I don't have a car, but if you want, I'll drive.
- They'll give me back my license in a couple of months, but my brother has a car.
- I have a moped, and if you want, I can give you my social security number.
Meanwhile, it was 1:00 PM, but we weren't discouraged. Also because no one knew the start time of the concert.
All other musical/economic/road/diplomatic issues we agreed would be discussed thoroughly during the trip. The last thing I remember is my driveway, then I wake up in Rho with a screwdriver in my hand and don't even know where I am.
We parked on a lawn near a hydrant, and as I got out, slamming the door on a "no parking" sign, a guy told us not to leave the car there because it was close to the "Field"; well, weird people, we didn't see any fields, in fact, next to us there was a fence with numerous caravans inside, with a myriad of clothes hanging that even provided shade, better that way.
ANTHRAX. Despite the meticulous travel organization, inexplicably I arrived after the concert had started, unspecified time, sun like a Brazilian GP with respective wavy asphalt mirages. I was far away, more heard than seen the Anthrax; and there's little to say: they always know how to make the audience sing and engage, and among hits ("Caught In A Mosh", "Metal Thrashing Mad") and new pieces, they pull out songs like "Medusa", which perhaps they didn't even know they had in their discography. Dan Lilker (not sure if it's him or his son) continues stubbornly to show he's 25, while Joey Belladonna (his vocal performance was GGGreat) initially seemed to me like Alice Cooper, just older and more wrinkled.
But at some point, I realized I didn't understand much more than a damn; maybe it was the nap in the car that left me 'disoriented' or the extra beers, but... I mean... not that I was drunk, but not entirely sober either... let's say I wasn't seeing double, but... multiplied by 1.5. In fact, at one point, it seemed like there were 3 guitarists on stage. At a certain point, I thought I heard "Whiplash" by Metallica... afterward, the auditory hallucinations continued with "Refuse/Resist"... when I then tried to get closer and Andreas Kisser from Sepultura appeared, I realized it was better to go a bit into the shade under the bar or psychiatric ward tent.
MEGADETH. It's been 4 years since I last saw them live, which seems like 16 for Mustaine's face and his presumed early aging treatment. When I saw the guitar he showed up with, I reconsidered Sandy Marton's strap-on keyboard. But damn, a great concert, technical and precise, although alongside "Holy Wars" and "Symphony Of Destruction", "Tornado Of Souls" or many other epic songs left out to make room for pieces like "Trust" or that whine "A Tout Le Monde" would have been nice.
Bravo also to the other guitarist, Chris Broderick of whom we also have a photo with short hair (link). A round of applause for Dave Ellefson: the years have passed for him too; if you watch him in concert muting the volume, he looks like one of the Pooh (link), but he has an irrefutable excuse. He's been putting up with Mustaine since 1983.
SLAYER. They always do the same stuff. If you hated them, they'll continue to make you hate them for eternity. To me, they were great and devastating, as usual (duh?). It's a shame that whoever was regulating the sound probably passed out or had to ration electricity, because where I was, Gary Holt's guitar was non-existent. Anyway, great concert, Araya walks around the stage with the bearish aggression of Yogi and the confidence of a thirty-year career in which he still hasn't decided whether to learn to play bass or sing, so in the meantime, he does both decently. Kerry King is now a pachyderm-like mix between a 'trucker' in a diner and Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart (link), while the Behind but musically in Front is Him, the Drummer.
And it continues with some more recent pieces ("Americon", "Snuff") cute but disappearing in front of mythological tracks like "Chemical Warfare", "Raining Blood", or "Season In The Abyss"; no frills and scenery during the live, at the end no bows and greetings, the Slayer leave us with "Angel Of Death".
I could go home more than satisfied. But no, ziochen.
METALLICA. So: the concert area spans a surface estimated by myself at 500x250 steps. The sandwiches, I was told by someone, were terrible, yet a guy from Mantua ate 4 in a row all with sausage and said they were good. But let's talk about the concert. The 40cl beer (which is NOT A HALF-PINT, even if you title it so, it's not A HALF-PINT the same damn thing!) cost 5 Euros, and I would say they could slightly go shoveitintheirass. But there were plenty of benches, which served to scratch your feet better after being bitten by mosquitoes, although to tell the truth, I think I was the only one among those ThousandThousand people with sandals.
Anyway, if you want to relax at a concert, go to the back and sit. Not with Metallica. Because the volumes are perfect, the lighting is Hollywood-like, the big screens doubled compared to the other bands.
Metallica are a brand. And after 23 years of not scoring a good album, swarms of 16-18-year-olds arrive and know the songs of "Kill 'Em All" by heart, but have no idea who wrote "Die, Die My Darling". And then there's even the intro with Sergio Leone's film and music, there are bangs, firecrackers, the machine gun shots before "One", the fireworks (Disgustorama...), and it even reaches the super tacky inflatable balloons with "Metallica" written on them launched into the crowd that after a quarter bounce triggered the scramble to take them home... what the hell does one do with a balloon with a 1m radius? Do they have a special room for it?
Every time I see a Metallica concert, they sound worse to me; and this time they even resurrected some nice old pieces like "The Shortest Straw" (which I really liked) and "The Call Of Ktulu" (and meanwhile Mustaine backstage asked Kerry King for his chain to whip himself out of rage), sparing us thankfully from "Nothing Else Matters" and opting for the infinitely better "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" and "Fade To Black". But it's the whole setup that doesn't convince me, these constant rockstar poses of Hetfield, the usual inane speeches about metal at the end of each song that compared to them, Pino Scotto says new things. Robert Trujillo as a good bassist of Suicidal Tendencies now wanders in the unknown world of Thrash, never managing to find a place, adding a stage presence equal to that of a session musician from the Rolling Stones.
And then there's Lars Ulrich. Unwatchable. Un-hearable. Besides playing without a hint of power (and with those volumes, you could even hear a mosquito landing on the snare), and wanting to act like a circus clown, he can no longer redo the changes he himself devised in HIS songs. If it wasn't for Hammett, they'd be closing shop tomorrow.
In the end, all is well, I wasn't admitted to the burn center, the beers outside the gates were almost given away, we found the car & its wheels, and I'm not sure if you'll ever read this review because we kind of took the wrong way back to Venice and I'm writing this from the car.
But we're almost there.
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