Iron Maiden at Madison Square Garden

What to say, what to say...well, this happened, which pretty much sums up anything I could say about how awesome this show was. Playing soccer on stage while the crew deals with a blown speaker (during "Powerslave"...the irony is gigantic) and making it fun for 20,000 people to watch does take a special talent. Hell, watching a band play the exact same set list three months apart and loving every minute of it because they managed to make their show that much bigger the second time around (Madison Square Garden: big frickin' space with decent acoustics that sounds massive) is proof positive by itself that Iron Maiden is one of rock's premiere live bands. See them live, but don't take all of the tickets because I'll be coming back for more.

Before the show, I was explaining the rules of t-shirt wearing at concerts to my brother-in-law. Many people don't understand these rules, so it's worth going over them here, if for no other reason than that I was validated for following them immediately after the show. So, here we go:

1. Do not wear a t-shirt put out by the band you're going to see. Doing so makes you look like a poseur who lacks a deeper knowledge of the subtleties of the music scene, or at least the understanding that there are other bands out there who play the same kind of music. On a corollary, don't wear a shirt put out by a fan of the band you're going to see paying homage to that band (like this shirt, for example. By the way, this picture makes me happier than I can say), for the same reasons. You'll just be That Guy, and no one wants that (although the legions of people I see buying shirts at a show and then wearing them during the show might disagree). Also, variety makes people watching far more interesting between sets.
   
   
2. Don't wear a shirt of a band that has a long-standing disagreement or feud with the band you're going to see. For example, if you're going to see Megadeth, don't wear a Metallica t-shirt; if you're going to see Iron Maiden, don't wear an Ozzy t-shirt (or a maybe just a shirt with Sharon Osbourne on it, which would be pretty lame anyway); if you're going to see Dream Theater, don't wear a Queensryche shirt, etc. Much like breaking rule one, breaking rule two makes you look like a tool who doesn't pay attention to the subculture you're invading. Chances are this means you cost some fan who really does care about the music a ticket, which means you're an evil person. It's also possible you just don't care about feuds, but then you're missing the point.
   
   
3. When picking a shirt to wear, the goal is to choose something that's either old or obscure or (preferably) both. Both factors give you credibility, and can help you strike up conversations with random people during the show. Having an old tour shirt (we're talking a piece of clothing that's a minimum of 20 years of age) can even let you break rule number one. I'm pretty sure I saw a shirt from the original Somewhere in Time tour last night, and even though it was a Maiden shirt, it was an old Maiden shirt, which made it pretty cool. People with shirts like that tend to have interesting stories.

Anyway, those are the rules. Follow those rules, last night I chose to wear a GWAR shirt I picked up during the We Kill Everything tour, and sure enough: walking back to my car, I was hailed by two guys who thought my shirt was the coolest thing they'd seen in the past half hour. Instant validation, at only pennies a day!

Gigantour III at Hammerstein Ballroom

I was pretty excited about this show before going; it was Megadeth, after all, and even though I've seen Dave Mustaine and his latest group of instrument-wielding henchmen far too many times over the past three years (Six! Six! What the hell is wrong with me?), they've made up for my terrible first viewing so many times at this point that it's hard not to get psyched up about the upcoming thrashing. Then I found out that Children of Bodom was on the bill.

As I've mentioned in the past, Children of Bodom exerts a strange and powerful influence over me, not unlike that of Megadeth. Putting the two of them on the same bill was a stroke of pure genius, and while people make jokes about a show being too much rock to handle, in this case it was nearly the truth: I thrashed and banged so hard during the two sets that I couldn't sleep properly for the next two days from my aching neck and shoulders and had to call in sick. It's a measure of a good old metal time when you're not only physically exhausted but slightly damaged, too.

What's odd - for me, anyway - about seeing any band (whether I know them well or not) live is that I don't remember very much of the music afterward. Take this show, for example. I know Job for a Cowboy played some wretched-sounding sludge that made anticipating Bodom that much sweeter, like an upcoming feast for a starving man (seriously, they were that bad). I know I was making up words to "Angels Don't Kill" and "Sixpounder" because I was so hyped up I had to scream something, even if they weren't technically the right lyrics. I know my friends and I retreated to the downstairs bar while In Flames played because they were in serious danger of becoming the crap sandwich between two buns of awesome and we had some bullshitting to do. And I know I nearly removed my skull from my neck during "Hangar 18," and that I thought that Chris Broderick did a better job on the Spanish guitar bridge in "Holy Wars" than Glen Drover, and seemed to have more stage presence, too. But I don't really remember much else, and when I try to think of the songs I do know, I just hear the studio versions. Soon enough, the mental pictures from this show will merge with those from other shows, and - if I'm lucky - I'll be left with one framing shot from the whole night, and the feeling that I had a great time.

Megadeth at Irving Plaza

It's a good night to be out; the weather is cool without being cold, with a little too much humidity that makes any time outside uncomfortable only with some exertion. We're not outside for any real extertion; we wander with a purpose in the Union Square area, waiting for the 9:45 hour, when the bands with metalcore names leave the stage and Megadeth comes on. We sit in a bar, and drink, and talk about music. The sound system is high-end, large sound-reinforcement type speakers dominating a room so shitty-looking it could be out of a punk documentary. The speakers and the room are diametrically opposed in quality; they shouldn't be in the same two block radius, let alone the same room, but the whole thing works. Maybe it's because of the weird mix of tracks: Jawbreaker, Minor Threat, Embrace, James Brown. I'm told to expect "The Trooper" to come on at any second. We talk about Ian MacKaye and his DIY ethic, Blake Schwarzenbach and how he now teaches English at Hunter College. It's a good way to warm up for a concert; a much better way than listening to whatever crappy bands Roadrunner's packaged on this tour.

Seeing Megadeth has become a common occurrence; five times in two years far outstrips my frequency for any other band. It's a little ironic; I remember thinking after I heard that Dave had hurt his wrist that it sucked I would never see that band live. Maybe I'm making up for lost time.

Irving Plaza is packed, almost to the gills. We start out below the overhand, where the sound sucks and for some reason they're not using the extra speakers they've added. As Megadeth takes the stage we squeeze our way through the crowd and into an open area near one of the doors. The difference in sound between the overhand and the open room is palpable. The sound still sucks, but it's gone from a dull roar to a wall, a wall of high frequency fuzzed harmonics and deeper guitar distortion, interspersed with the rhythmic smashing of the drums and the indistinct wailing of whomever is singing. It's like having your head cut off with a sound wave. The air is electric and it feels good.

Mustaine has a cold, or some sort of sick thing that makes it hard for him to sing; he apologizes but tells us he didn't want to cancel. We love him for it and we let him know, just like we let him and the band know how happy we are to be there after every song. The crowd - whatever the capacity crowd is for Irving, small but not insignificant - doesn't sound like 1,000 people in a club when we cheer, but 5,000 or 10,000 or more in an arena or a stadium. It's huge; it reverberates from the ceiling of the old concert hall and startles me every time it happens. It adds to the atmosphere, to the excitement of seeing this band do their thing and do it well once again.

Megadeth, as always, plays a mix of the very new and the very old; think "Washington is Next" meets "Hangar 18" meets "Kick the Chair" meets "In My Darkest Hour" meets "Symphony of Destruction" and you'll get the idea. The crowd doesn't know the new material as well and no one can hear Dave, so the new tracks turn into respectful silences and physical breaks for the crowd, who throw everything they have into every old track the band plays. I sing at shows, when I know the songs; it helps me let myself go into the music more. I'm singing - but I'm always singing - but it feels like everyone else is, too. It's communal, unifying, and it makes the show that much more memorable, because we're all getting our faces melted together and we all know it. They play the new version of "Toute le Monde," and I realize that Dave's little remake trick must be working; there are a lot of women in this crowd. They play "Tornado of Souls" and the fifth time I hear it live is just as good as the first. I lose my shit; I love that song.

It's 11:20. The night's over, the set finished just on the cusp of going too long. We stumble out into the street, swap stories of other shows and other good times built around music and metal. I walk back to the subway, thoughtful. Nights like these are why I go to shows, I decide, in search of the high that only good live music can bring. It's a good addiction.

Countdown to Darkness

I came back from the gym this morning with a real yen to hear "Architecture of Aggression" - or, as I was calling it until recently for some reason, "Architecture of Regression" - and eventually put on the whole disc for my sonic enjoyment. About three-quarters of the way through, I realized something that's been in the back of my mind for years; probably ever since I bought the CD as a lad: Countdown to Extinction is very dark record.

It's not the lyrics per se; Mustaine had been writing lyrics about war and destruction for years and Countdown... fits right in that same mold. The difference is in the music; for the first time there's not much thrashing, so the sound timbre doesn't have the frantic brightness that thrash brings to the mix. Instead, it's gloom and doom in both the words and the music. I remember listening to the spoken word part in the middle of "Countdown to Extinction" and freaking out thinking about all of that life disappearing, faster and faster. Previous Megadeth albums were like the Mad Max world of post-nuclear apocalypse, disease, death and the fight for survival. Countdown... was more like the moment the bombs go off, when your old life crumbles around you and you wonder if it's better to die in the fiery flash or try and survive with what's left.

It's also got Dave Mustaine singing about selling man pussy, which is a comic highlight to a Megadeth album if there ever was one.

Film Review: Get Thrashed

Last week I had the distinct pleasure of attending the New York City premiere of Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash Metal, a documentary about - you guessed it - the history of thrash from its origins in the 1980s to whatever form it's still kicking around in today. Directed by Rick Ernst, Get Thrashed featured Rat Skates, formerly of Overkill, as associate producer.

The showing took place in a theater on the East Side as a part of the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival. This association probably made the whole showing possible, but it lead to a few problems that very nearly killed the fun of this party before it got started.

First, there was the matter of seating arrangements. Because New York City is one of the world's original thrash capitals, many of the members of the NYC-area bands featured in this film wanted to come to the premiere. Because New York City is a place where class equality is a convenient lie, the organizers decided to reserve the front four rows for the bands and their families, even though there weren't really enough chairs for all of the ticket holders and this wasn't a crowd for acting star struck. Clearly, fire code be damned when there are rock stars involved.

But then the organizers went too far: they informed us - less than a minute before the show was supposed to start - that Get Thrashed would have an unannounced opener, a piece called Bang Bang You're Dead about an indie rock band from Utah. And they even had the director, a neophyte giving his first showing, in the audience to make an introduction.

As you can no doubt imagine, the result was a disaster. The film itself wasn't that bad - it reminded me a bit of Instrument, if Instrument had been Jem Cohen's first film - but anyone with half a brain would know that showing a film with no real narrative and a bunch of disassociated imagery about a group of college-age indie kids to a crowd of mostly 30+ metalheads would go over like a lead zeppelin. I was impressed: the crowd managed to maintain a sullen silence for the first few minutes before the conversation rose to low roar, people started actively booing the endless transitions or announcing loudly they were going out to get popcorn. The film's end after half an hour was a mercy killing overdue by about 25 minutes, leaving us to wonder if we had been the victims of a last minute switch due to poor ticket sales for Bang Bang Your Dead or some sort of bullheaded stupidity by our hosts.

Thankfully, the rest of the evening's awesome was proportional to the beginning's suckitude: Get Thrashed is an excellent, excellent film that gets even better when you watch it with a room full of fans not afraid to show their love for a nostalgia trip down heavy metal memory lane. Focusing on the world's four big thrash areas (LA, San Francisco, New York and Germany) and moving in a rough chronological order that tied the US Big Four (Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax) and German thrash giants Kreator to the scenes they helped spawn, Get Thrashed happily traced the progression of thrash from its roots in Metallica's garage in LA and Exodus's brutal live shows in San Francisco in 1980 to the movement's apogee with the 1990 Clash of the Titans tour, using photos, video and interviews with everyone from Blitz Ellsworth and Rat Skates to Dave Mustaine to Zetro to Lars Ulrich to the members of Dark Angel to those crazy bastards from the Old Bridge Militia to tell the tale.

While all of those interviews are informative, a few go beyond and become truly memorable. Blitz Ellsworth, for example, is either really funny or really, really crazy, but in a way that makes you want to have a beer with him so you can hear some stories. Dave Mustaine is...well, Dave Mustaine, the strange cross between super arrogant guitar god and comic book geek. My favorite moment in the movie was when Mustaine goes on a short rant about how he made the careers of everyone in Megadeth, could play better than everyone in Metallica, was, in fact, responsible for thrash music as we know it today - cue a gasp from the crowd - and then the film makers cut to Scott Ian, who tells the camera, "if it wasn't for Dave Mustaine, thrash music probably wouldn't exist."

There were some nice tribute moments, too: moments of silence written in for the memories of Cliff Burton, Paul Baloff and Dimebag Darrell made even more poignant by the sentiment of the crowd, which gave each man a full round of applause. These moments underscored how much of a community metal can be when it's brought together around something good; when in-fighting and external attacks aren't part of the equation and the mood turns to celebration of what's been done.

All of these moments underscore what seems to be Get Thrashed's underlying purpose: to set down the official story, such as it is, as a monument to one generation of metalheads and the bands they loved. It's a huge strength for the film, but it also underscores the film's one weakness: Get Thrashed puts thrash metal's foundations in a near vacuum, as if it sprang fully formed from the minds of a few guys who liked playing loud and fast, tiptoes around the more difficult issues and ascribes everything that's going on in metal now to what started 27 years ago. Historically it makes the film a little skewed, but that one problem pales in comparison to the enjoyable experience Get Thrashed provides to the viewer. If you can go see it, do; you'll have a great time.

Apologia: Responding to UN Dispatch

Seth alerted me to this post over at the UN Dispatch that purports to address all of the supposed inaccuracies in the title track of Megadeth's most recent release, United Abominations. Dave Mustaine being Dave Mustaine (boy is that the subject of a whole other post), he's written a long, rambling response that comes down to, "You're right and wrong, but I'm still right. Nyah!" plus some stuff about how the fans love him best anyway. I could hope for something more erudite and incisive from the song's creator, but then I wouldn't feel motivated to write my own response and point out, point by point, all of UN Dispatch's mistakes and really, what's the fun in that? See the original article for full context of quotes and note that I'm only responding to those sections that are either incorrect or seem to miss the song's point. Without further ado:

Last summer, UN Dispatch learned that the heavy metal band Megadeth was recording an album titled United Abominations, which featured cover art depicting a 9-11 style attack on the UN building in New York.

Not to be pedantic, but "9-11 style attack" would be something involving planes or, at the very least, a group of terrorists. The album art, which blogger Mark Leon Goldberg reprinted in a blog he wrote last August - the same post he references in the quote above, by the way - shows what looks like a meteor attack, a group of bloodied angels and Vic Rattlehead looking bad ass and holding a shotgun while glowering at the meteors streaming in from the right of the viewpoint. I think we can all agree that terrorists are as much a source of meteor attacks as Britney Spears is a source of good music.

But not being much of a Megadeth fan, I forgot to pencil the release date into my calender.

Mr. Goldberg will go on to prove how little he knows of Megadeth's music many, many times during this article.

Blaming the UN for 9-11 is a new trope, even for conspiracy mongers--and rightly so.

Actually, the line in question is "[the United Nations] failed to address the most dangerous threats facing the world," not "[the United Nations] failed to prevent 9-11." You'll notice that threats is pluralized, which dovetails with Mustaine's rant about UN lapses at the end of the song. Mustaine's politics aren't always crystal clear, but his lyrics have always been anti-war, starting with Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?, where incidentally, the band chose to depict the UN after a nuclear holocaust in the cover art. Mr. Goldberg also misquotes the lyrics several times in this section, which doesn't add much credibility to his arguments.

Assuming the antecedent to the pronoun "they" refers to the UN Secretariat, lead singer and guitarist Dave Mustaine (whose voice we now hear) seems to be implying that UN staffers are enriching themselves while the poor in their country suffer.

Could be...the meaning of "they," used throughout the entire verse, is so ambiguous that Mustaine could talking about UN employees as thieves, or - especially in the second half the verse - the UN as dupes to President Bush. Also, that's been Mustaine's voice throughout the song.

By warning of 'another mushroom cloud, another smoking gun,' Mustain [sic] seems to be implying that the nuclear threat from Iraq was real, or at least as real as the threat from the United Nations. [emphasis in the original]

Or, once again, Mustaine could be implying that the UN didn't do enough to stop the invasion of Iraq, which would be a message much more consistent with Megadeth's anti-war stance.

This is where things get weird. 'The Locust King' is drawn from the Book of Revelation, Chapter 9. Mustain's [sic] decision to use apocalyptic literature found in Revelation is quite, uh, revealing. He seems to be sympathetic to a fundamentalist doctrine known as pre-millenialism [sic], in which an anti-Christ is said to rule the world during a period of tribulation before the messiah (Christ) returns. Some modern day pre-millenialist [sic] sects believe that the United Nations (or the Secretary General), is either literally the anti-Christ, or is setting the geopolitical conditions in which the anti-Christ will rise. Mustaine seems to believe this lunacy as well.

You know who else is a Christian? President George W. Bush - and he's had no qualms about incorporating his religious beliefs into his governing doctrine. Following the UN-as-dupes theme, Bush could be the Locust King, dragging the United States into a conflict that becomes the war that spawns Armageddon. Knowing Megadeth's song catalog as I do (and as Mr. Goldberg clearly does not), I'd have to say a literary allusion from a guy known for songs about comic books superheros and fictional characters doesn't seem too far off the mark.

Again, Mustaine seems to be ascribing pre-Iraq war intelligence failures to the UN.

As with most of the first verse, there are no proper nouns, so Mr. Goldstein seems to be filling in the blanks by drawing on the title of the song. "The decision to attack/Based on secret intelligence" is an indictment of the lies told by the US government before the Iraq invasion. Added evidence: you can clearly hear Mustaine add "Iran and [North] Korea," which are the other two countries named as the "Axis of Evil" by President Bush in 2002.

At this point, you can hear French spoken in the background. The only thing I could decifer [sic] was, "Nous besoin d'ordre mondial," meaning, "We need global order." This apparently upsets Mustaine, because he launches into a monster guitar solo!

The French speaker in question actually says "we need a new world order" first and then "yes, a new order." It's actually too bad Mr. Goldberg missed this tidbit, as the phrase "a new world order" is a pretty important piece of 20th century history: it started as an expression of optimism for peace after the First and Second World Wars, incorporating the spirit that led to the foundation of the League of Nations in 1919 and then the United Nations in 1945. After the Cold War, the first President Bush co-opted the phrase to build support for the first invasion of Iraq. Look at that: two tie-ins to the song, just by going back and listening closely.

In 1986, Libyan agents bombed a nightclub in Berlin, killing two US servicemen. President Regan retaliated by bombing two sites in Libya. It is hard to see how this episode is somehow an indictment against the United Nations.

To quote the UN Peacekeeping FAQ: "The United Nations was founded, in the words of its Charter, in order “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”." Bombings and counter-bombings by two members of the United Nations on the soil of a third would seem to fly in the face of the organization's charter. In other words: the UN can't even prevent its own member nations from fighting each other.

Facing War without end, looking into the future, there (grunt) was
(grunt) no (grunt) more (grunt) UNNNNNNNN!

Grunt?! Did you listen to this song on a telephone speaker when you transcribed the lyrics? Do you not recognize double-tracked vocals when you hear them? Enough of you, Mark Goldberg, you're done.

The Trials of Uncool

While putting together the source material (aka, "watching the show") for my latest review (review here, photos here), I had my second-ever encounter with what I like to call the "my publication's not cool enough" syndrome. To be honest, the syndrome is an underlying current in all of my comped tickets because I tend to get attached to the guest lists of opening bands - in the case of this show, I enjoyed myself courtesy of Kataklysm - but it really expresses itself when it comes to photographing headliners. As it turns out, not every band is as psyched to have someone from About.com take pictures of them as I would hope, so twice in the past seven months - first with Megadeth and now with Dimmu Borgir, I had the pleasure of being barred from the photographer's well by the main act. As I result, every time I pack up my camera, I think, "will tonight be another night where I won't get to shoot the whole show because we're not cool enough? Will I chose to take pictures from the audience like every other fan, or just cut my losses?" Tough dilemmas, my friends, tough dilemmas indeed.

"Not being cool enough" is an odd feeling because after six shows, I'm starting to recognize certain photographers by sight; guys who clearly work for major metal publications because of their large cameras and consistent photo access. Even though I've never talked to any of these guys, the cool guys who can take pictures of any on they want, I feel a little intimidated: do they notice? Will they somehow take advantage of my lesser status by blocking me out of a key shot in a (sometimes over-) crowded well? Does it really matter, because they're professionals and I'm just an amateur exploring a hobby? The rational consciousness shrugs off, the irrational subconscious thinks about a little too much to be healthy.

The other half of the story is that the "not cool enough" syndrome is a little irrational. About.com is the biggest website you've started to hear of, with millions of visitors each month; so why doesn't it get the respect of major metal magazine when it comes to photo passes? The problem is perception, I'm sure; those millions of visitors tend not to be in the right demographic, so About.com doesn't have the same presence in the metal landscape as a Kerrang! or Metal Maniacs despite having many, many more readers as a whole. Fixing that perception will take a lot of work and isn't really something I can control, but that doesn't stop me from dreaming - and fearing - every time I pick up a camera.