Gigantour 2013: Hot time in the country.

                Six bands played at Gigantour this year.  For those of you uninitiated in all that is Gigantour, it is the (usually) annual concert festival headlined by Megadeth.  Kind of like OzzFest, but on a smaller scale and usually with less bands that you don’t want to see.  Last year, my brother and I went to Gigantour way out in Glens Falls, New York.  It was held at a hockey arena in February, and the experience was…shall we say…less than memorable.  The lineup included Volbeat, Lacuna Coil, Motorhead and Megadeth.  While Volbeat and Megadeth were good, Lacuna Coil was terrible and Motorhead fell under the “let’s crank the volume, who cares if it sounds bad” umbrella that seems to plague bands at times.  Not only that, but because it was indoors, the acoustics weren’t as good all around and all of the stage tricks like fake smoke and bright lights hung around a bit longer than they should, masking the experience of actually seeing the concert.  This year’s show was in an outdoor venue, in the middle of summer, so I had higher hopes that everything would come together and make this a more enjoyable experience.

                My brother and I rolled up to the show about thirty minutes before it started and got a decent parking space.  Instead of going right in, we hung out and tailgated for awhile, soaking up the fairly tepid tailgating atmosphere.  We had actual seats, so going early and standing in the lawn to get a good spot wasn’t necessary.  We are both getting way too old to stand for that length of time, and my brother was just getting over a cold, so the fact that we could sit down between sets was a godsend.  That also meant that we didn’t have to listen to the opening bands.  If a show has one or even two openers before the headliner, I’ll usually take a listen, even if I’m not in general admission seating.  When a concert boasts six bands, with a few that I have never heard of…not so much.  Not only that but my general fickle nature when it comes to metal music makes finding new metal bands that I like very difficult. I like classic, older metal bands.  Any of the newer stuff, the screaming, unintelligible metal bands are not my cup of tea for the most part.  That being said, my brother and I skipped Death Division and Newstead.  While it would have been interesting to see Jason Newstead in a non-Metallica roll, we heard the music from our parking spot, it was not something that we really wanted to partake in anyway.  We headed in after that though, and I’ll run down the four bands that we did see.  This was amidst a cloud of sweat and body odor so forgive me if my recollections are a bit hazy as the smell of Campbells chicken noodle soup tends to mess with your senses a bit (yeah, I’m looking at you green-haired girl two rows up).

The seats were better than I anticipated.  What you don't see here are the fancy Hellyeah rugs they had on the ground for the guitar players to stand on.  

Hellyeah:

                I don’t mind Hellyeah, at least up until their most current album.  Unfortunately, the crispness of their first two albums was completely lost during their forty minute set of live music.  Ninety percent of their set was unintelligible.  This was not only due to the frontman’s screaming/slurring delivery, but also the fact that the double bass on the drums was the loudest sound on the stage.  I realize that a huge part of Hellyeah’s credibility has to do with the fact that Vinnie Paul is behind the drum kit, but that doesn’t automatically require you to make his sound the only thing heard.  Beyond that, the rest of the instruments were unintelligible as well.  There are two guitars and a bass in the band and they pretty much all came across as one big wall of sound.  That lack of separation, combined with the too-loud drums and the vocals (if you can call them that) made for a poor opening experience. The fact that Hellyeah needed an extra guy in the back, screaming (just fucking screaming) into a microphone seemed incredibly silly to me, and it’s not something I would ever pay full price to see again.   I will give the frontman a little credit as he was definitely full of energy, jumping around the stage and running around without losing his breath (a bigger feat than you would imagine considering the way he was screaming pretty much the entire time).  Other than that though, you can color me unimpressed with Hellyeah.

Device:

                Talk about taking yourself too seriously.  I know, David Draiman, you used to be in Disturbed, but come on.  You were in Disturbed, not Led Zeppelin.  From the fact that he came out on stage wearing what can only be described as Dracula’s bathrobe, to the posturing while he was singing, and the way he barked at two women to leave the pavilion during his set because they didn’t stand up, really dude?  You look like Phil Collins and Kevin Spacey’s love child.  The fact that he kept referring to Device as “his band” was a little odd as well, and it was quite clear that regardless of the skill of the other musicians, Draiman wanted all of the headlines and glory.  Speaking of the band, there was no bass guitarist.  At all.  The sound was okay though, and I could detect some heft to the music, which means that the sound was probably piped in, making it feel almost “Guitar Hero”-esque in that there was music already being played that the band had to synch up to.  For someone that was at the show to see Megadeth and, more importantly, Black Label Society, you can understand my disappointment with that kind of “non-traditional” delivery.               

                I will give Draiman credit in that he noticed a nine year old kid in the audience and pulled him on stage to give the child the spotlight for a moment (the only spotlight he shared for his forty-minute set) as he acknowledged the importance of the child rocking out.  The child had noise cancelling headphones on, so he wasn’t being injured by the volume, and he seemed to be having a good time.  I know we can have a debate about bringing kids to concerts (I’ve had that debate) but as long as you take precautions and are not afraid to leave early if necessary, I don’t see a problem, and musicians will gravitate to kids in the audience, making them feel included and giving a special air to their experience.

                The best part about the Device set was the Nine Inch Nails cover that they ended with.  Playing “Wish” was the highlight of the set for sure, even though I’m not as enthralled by Draiman’s vocals as many people appear to be (but that may have a lot to do with the fact that I’m not a huge fan of him as a person).  All of the problems I had with Device were magnified by Black Label Society as the next band, who was basically the anti-Device.

The anticipation was palpable in the air as that banner unfurled over the stage.

Black Label Society:

                I’ve been a BLS fan for years and this is the first time I have gotten to see them live.  You can imagine my excitement as Zakk and the boys took the stage.  While I have been disappointed in the past when my “bucket list bands” have not lived up to my expectations, BLS surpassed those expectations with ease.  The set list was expansive, covering pretty much every album in the catalog (save Zakk’s solo stuff, Pride and Glory, and the underrated and underappreciated Hangover Music Volume VI album).  That being said, everything fit well together, with Zakk barely stopping his fingers from moving the whole time.  Seriously, the only time he stopped playing was to change guitars, and usually during those times an “intro” to the next song was playing.  All in all, Zakk played for just about sixty minutes straight, not stopping to chat up the crowd like the frontmen from Device and Hellyeah did (and they did it a lot), and only giving a small thank you at the very end before closing out the set with “Stillborn”. 

They tore it up, and Nick (who you can see to the right with the bandanna) was fully engaged with the crowd the entire time.

This is a short snippet of the lengthy solo that Zakk performed halfway through the set.

                There was so much that BLS did right during their set.  The song selection, the bare bones setup, showcasing just the music and nothing else, it definitely ranks very highly in terms of the best live bands I have seen.  The setup was as simple as it could be.  Four guys playing instruments, two guitars, a bass and a conservative drum kit (compared to the other bands that played with them anyway).  There were no lights, no smoke, no flash.  Just a huge stack of Marshall amps behind the guys.  The only thing that could even be deemed “flashy” is Zakk’s microphone stand which was crafted to look like a heavy chain and has three skulls hanging off it. 

The best part of the set was the end of it though.  Not in the same way the best part of the Device and Hellyeah sets was the fact that they ended, no.  The best part was that when the set ended, each member of the band, from Zakk on down to Nick Catanese (more on him in a second) to the drummer and bassist (who looked like he rolled out of the Shire and picked up a bass guitar) came together in the center of the stage, congratulated each other for a show well done, gave each other a hug and turned to thank the audience and take a bow.  There was no pretension, no feeling of anything but gratitude.  Based on the amount of BLS shirts in the audience, it was pretty obvious that most people (myself included) came out to the show to see that band.  They could have ended the set, tossed a couple guitar picks and walked offstage, but they celebrated, they were thankful, and they were real. 

This is how you end your set.  Everyone was thankful and ecstatic, and Zakk led the charge.

                After the band left the stage and the stagehands worked to tear down the BLS set and put the Megadeth set together (which they did quickly and efficiently – more than I have ever seen in fact) Nick Catanese strolled out of the backstage/VIP area and milled around by the seats to my right.  As soon as people noticed him he was mobbed and did the best he could to take as many photos and shake as many hands as he could before he walked backstage.  Then, he proceeded to come back out and head up the aisle, shaking hands and probably stopping for more pictures along the way.  He showed that BLS is full of the right kind of guys, musicians that are for the people that appreciate their fans and work to give them what they want, even if it’s just a quick cellphone pic.  BLS proves that fame, notoriety and legions of devoted fans don’t have to make you prima donnas.  That kind of action basically cemented my return to a BLS concert and comfort with spending my hard-earned cash on a quality product created by quality people.

Megadeth:

                There was one thing that Megadeth had to do this year to top last year’s show; use less fake fucking smoke.  Last year, my brother and I had tickets along the side of the hockey arena  in the seats, deciding that general admission standing room areas just would not work for us anymore as our knees and backs age and creak along.  We were not that far from the stage last year, but the sheer amount of fake smoke covered the stage, and that combined with the lighting made it nearly impossible to see the musicians at times.  The quality of the music itself was great, so by improving the visual aspect of the performance, it would have created the complete package this year.

My phone was dying by this point, so the pictures here aren't as crisp because I couldn't utilize the flash, plus Megadeth loves putting bright lights at the front of the stage.

                As Megadeth often does, they delivered.  Not only was the music itself of the same quality as it was last year (a pretty similar set list as well, just with the incorporation of three new tracks off their most recent release Super Collider) but they had little to no fake smoke.  I’m not sure if something malfunctioned in the mechanism or what, but the band started out with a little fake smoke and after that dissipated it was not really replenished.  This left for a clear and clean viewing experience, and also an ample opportunity for someone to film portions of the show on their phone.  That’s kind of the cost of doing business nowadays though.  I could have done with all of the visuals that they had going on on the three screens behind the band as I found it distracting at times.  I Came to the show to watch Dave Mustaine shred, and if they had left it at that it would have been ideal. 

                The band was incredible, as always, playing all of the hits and pretty much focusing their attention on all of the songs that people wanted to hear (ignoring anything past Risk except for the new album).  Though a heavy-hitter like “Moto Psycho” would have been fun to hear, its absence in no way reflected poorly on the rest of the set.  The band itself, much like BLS was courteous and thankful of the people that showed up, and while Dave Mustaine interacted with the audience more than Zakk Wylde did, it was way more accepted and welcome than that of the leaders of Device and Hellyeah.  It really looked like Mustaine was having a good time on stage (which could be due to the fact that this was only the third show of the tour) but he, and the entire band seemed loose and happy, which always translates well during the course of the show.  Mustaine even stayed out for a few minutes after the rest of the band left the stage and people started to file out, saying good-bye and thank you to everyone that had their eyes still transfixed on the stage.  It’s impressive that a member of the “Big Four” is still humble enough to do that. 

This was early on in the set as my phone was dead by the end, but needless to say, the guys killed it the whole time.

                 Between BLS and Megadeth, it proves that your stance in the music community and your history therein is not a reason to treat your fans like they owe you something.  BLS and Megadeth are doing it the right way and should be commended not only for their contributions to the art form, but for their character.