I went to my first concert in a couple of years on Thursday night. Volbeat, Megadeth, and Rob Zombie were playing at Tyson Event Center in Sioux City, Iowa. Since that is only about an hour away from my home, I managed to talk my wife into going along. I had seen Rob Zombie several years ago, so Megadeth was the main draw here.
VOLBEAT:
I am not terribly familiar with Volbeat. I kind of bristled at some of the praise heaped upon them by Metalsucks and since my tastes are typically not in line with that website, I never really gave them much of a chance. I will say that the Danish band impressed me quite a bit on Thursday night. They played a fast-paced and energetic show. Their variety of influences were on display Thursday night as elements of rock and roll and punk shined through. The vocalist's crooning howl was definitely a strong point. It was also obvious that Volbeat knows their metal, playing excerpts from Motorhead, Metallica, and Slayer among others. We did not see their entire show as we were running a bit late, but I may have to check out some more Volbeat material.
MEGADETH:
As I said, Megadeth is the reason that I wanted to go to this concert. If it was just Rob Zombie and Volbeat, I would not have gone. I have been a Megadeth fan almost as long as I have been a metalhead. They were the second band after Metallica that I got into. But I had never seen them in concert so I had to go. Megadeth has not lost a step, they played a very fast-paced show. We did not get much of Dave Mustaine's personality as the band leapt into the show and did not really slow down until it was over. The show featured a sort of greatest hits collection. There were a few tracks from their latest album, but otherwise they played the usual classics: "Symphony of Destruction", "Peace Sells", "Hangar 18", and "Sweating Bullets" all made it into the set. They of course closed with "Holy Wars" as they typically do from my understanding. They sounded great. It's hard to believe they have been active for over 30 years at this point. My only complaint is that the video accompanying some of the songs seemed to skip a bit.
ROB ZOMBIE:
As I said, I have seen Zombie before. I had an idea of what to expect. I was a little disappointed that they relied almost entirely on video screens for the effects this time around instead of the moving set they had the last time I saw them. I have not really checked out much Rob Zombie material since being disappointed with the musical direction taken on the new tracks on Zombie's Greatest Hits collection several years ago. Turns out I did not miss much. Zombie only played three songs I had not heard before. The rest of the material was mostly from his first two solo albums and of course "Thunder Kiss '65" and "More Human than Human". Zombie did play us the trailer from his upcoming movie Lords of Salem which looks interesting. My wife particularly enjoyed his show.
On Volbeat: I told you so. On February 19, 2010, to be precise. They're kind of like the European Mastodon, in that they have the unusual ability to appeal to the mainstream and the metalheads alike. I reviewed their latest album, but I'd go for RTR/MTD as the best starting place.
ReplyDeleteThey're one of the few bands I like enough to get a live album.