Megadeth

After being warmed up by Canadian stoner troupe Priestess, the totally packed London crowd are chomping at the bit. They’re here for Megadeth and, more importantly, they’re here for Megadave, their flame-haired fretboard god. True to form, he strides onstage and sweeps majestically into a new track, ‘Sleepwalker’.

There is no chatter from the stage for a while but, along with brothers Shawn (drums) and Glen Drover (guitars) and James Lomenzo on bass, Dave Mustaine powers through riff-tastic song after guitar-duelling solo and has the crowd enraptured throughout.

Despite the hold the band have over their audience, there is something lacking tonight. It’s the same something that’s always been lacking from Megadeth’s shows. The show. The relationship between the band and their fans has become like that of a married couple. Nobody puts the effort in any more.

You don’t see the receding dudes in the crowd putting their favourite gumby coats on, carefully brushing the frayed edges of their ripped denim jackets before they leave the house. They just pull on a Megadeth tshirt on and then put a jumper on over it. You don’t see the very hirsute men onstage running up ramps or dodging misplaced fireballs either. But, regardless of this, everyone’s very happy with their lot.

All the effort tonight has gone into playing and listening to the music. While the new album has some great moments, there’s obviously a lot of focus on their back catalogue with loads coming from Rust In Peace. This pleased DiS to no end, but with a couple of other favourites missing we were left wondering if they couldn’t have stretched it out for a little bit.

Sure, they have some great songs to back up everything they don’t do, but Mustaine is hardly the most talkative of chaps. Fair enough, he doesn’t constantly interact with the crowd, but a bit more with his band wouldn’t have gone amiss. Guitar duels went begging on more than one occasion. Whether this is anything to do with Mustaine’s arm injury is anyone’s guess.

Saving their finest songs (‘Mechanix’, ‘Symphony Of Destruction’, ‘Holy Wars’) for the end is pretty much a no-brainer, but it’s the lack of thought gone into the show that makes it suffer slightly.

As such, there are absolutely no frills at The Astoria tonight but nobody cares in the slightest. They got to see Megadeth play some of their greatest songs, up close and personal, and it’s enough. It’ll happen again next time they’re over and everyone will still be just as happy. I’m happy. I saw Megadave and it was great.