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All pics and review are by Shelley Marks(Australia).  If you would like to contact her for more reviews, please let us know here at FFM ASAP.   Thank you Shelley for the GREAT review and pics!

A Night With Megadeth….
Melbourne, Australia. 09.10.09

Whoever said the Heavy Metal scene was over sure as hell had their head up their butts after what I saw last night at Festival Hall in Melbourne.

Myself and four others spent a long couple of hours driving to the city to see a legend, Dave Mustaine along with his new line up for Megadeth, currently touring Australia with another well known band, Slayer.

After a bit of a un-schedualed tour of the inner city of Melbourne we finally got to our destination and the first thing I noticed was the streets being lined with hundreds if not a few thousand of long haired, tattooed, black shirt wearing metal fans! Ahh… my fellow brethren! We got the car parked securely and made our way down to the venue.

The que was long but moving rapidly and the energy around us was that of relaxed excitement. Looking around I noticed a large amount of people were wearing Megadeth shirts, others Slayer with the exception of one or two fau paux’s… a Metallica shirt and a Killers shirt. Surprisingly those people remained untouched. Things had definately changed since my last metal concert thats for sure.

Once inside the Hall we were directed to our seats. Already the place was looking packed. The support act, Double Dragon, came on and played a few songs and got the growing crowd chanting for Slayer and Megadeth. For a supporting act I was impressed. Some nice heavy thrashing bass and guitar, thumping drums and a deep snarling singer.

It was then decided we would go get our shirts before Megadeth came on. I damn near choked when I saw the prices for the band merchandise. A basic shirt for $50.00 and upwards. The venders had specific people selling for the seperate bands and as the Slayer guys were free I grabbed my chance to get a couple Slayer shirts then waited for the Megadeth salesgirl to get around to me.. Sadly, as I came up short from the previous purchase I tried to use eftpos and the damn machine decided it didn’t want to work. Hmmmmmm.

By the time we got back to our seats the lights went out and the crowd roared with anticipation. With a flash of light effect Megadeth launched into their first song, “Set the world on fire”. Everyone one was immeditaley up out of their seats. This song was followed by “Wake the dead”. Dave then called a halt and I missed what he said. The lights came up and people were sitting back down waiting to see what was happening.

Ten minutes past, we noticed Dave standing at the mixing board. Ahhh! He came back onstage and
apologised to the audience, explaining that the sound was shit and said “You guys deserve better than that”…

With sound issues fixed, they launched into the remaining songs in the set. And I have to say, out of all the bands I have seen live over the years, this band are one of the few that sound as good live as they do recorded. Fans were singing, shouting, moshing and a lot of devil horns were being made. There was so much energy in the air… so much I found myself sweating my ass off even though the outside temperature was 8 degrees.

The new line up certainly showed there were up to par with past band members, if not better. Dave Mustaine, Chris Broderick, James LoMenzo and Shawn Drover. The guitar work was done so well and yet appeared almost effortless and you could see the fans were digging everything they heard.

What suprised myself and my friends was the fact that having just released a new albumn, most of the set were well loved but previously played on tour songs. They only played a couple new songs from Endgame. Not that anyone in the crowd complained. Songs like “Symphony of Destruction”, “Darkest hour” and “Tournado of Souls” elicited not just shouts but total roar’s of approval from the audience. “Headcrusher” has a more subdued response but was still enjoyable to hear.

Finally, they played the final song of the set list which had been shortened due to the sound problems earlier. “Holy Wars”. Dave and the band took their bows with the crowd chanting Mega-deth over and over. What impressed me more than anything was the fact there was no outbreak of violence or otherwise. Fans were all together enjoying themselves too much I think for any bullshit.

We departed after Megadeth as we had to travel home again. But having checked the forums today, the general reports on Slayer were of disapointment. The singer apparently had problems with his voice, there again were sound issues and fans are feeling very let down. The band didn’t banter or even apologise for the terrible performance they put on. So I don’t feel I missed much now.

Songs played:

Set The World Afire
Wake Up Dead
Devil’s Island
She-Wolf
Hangar 18
In My Darkest Hour
Rattlehead
Head Crusher
Tornado Of Souls
Symphony Of Destruction
Peace Sells
Holy Wars