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| Pioneers of Thrash metal, MEGADETH, signing off the show during their last song on "Holy Wars". (Photography: Hasan Imtiaz Ahamed) |
MEGADETH set the stage ablaze at the Black rock arena, Ground-D, Buddh International Circuit, Greater Noida on Sunday, Oct 14th '12 at 8.30 pm in the NH7 Bacardi weekender Festival. The MEGADETH concert in Delhi-Noida was a massive success and must had attracted approx. more than 5,000 metal heads from Delhi-NCR region and beyond. The show was hosted by BACARDI in their 2 day long music festival called “Bacardi NH7 Weekender Music Festival” where music lovers came to enjoy multi open air shows, good music, unlimited booze and fun etc… There were several good Indian bands lined up on both the days; however the big day was on the second, cause pioneers of thrash metal ‘MEGADETH’ was playing LIVE for the first time in Delhi-Noida, though it was their second visit to India, the first visit being at Bangalore in 2008.
No bands officially opened up for
MEGADETH, however, there were a lot of bands lined up that day before MEGADETH took the stage, they were -
BHAYANAK MAUT, DELHI METAL PROJECT, SCRIBE, SOLSTICE COIL, UNDYING INC, I think me and my friends reached the venue when DELHI METAL PROJECT were performing followed by
BHAYANAK MAUT and thereafter the stage was unlit and desolated for about 1 hour or so until
MEGADETH showed up close to their scheduled time by 8.30 pm IST and then the Gods of metal continuously delivered a dynamic power packed performance until around 10.45 pm. The four-piece ensemble thrash band stormed the venue for more than 2 hours giving their metal fans a show to remember for their lifetime.
MEGADETH mostly covered all the songs from their album ‘
Countdown to extinction’ and a couple of other songs from ‘
Cryptic writings’, ‘
Youthanasia’, ‘
Peace sells….
But who’s buying?’, ‘
Rust in peace’, and ‘
Th1rte3n’.
MEGADETH opened up with their classical rendition "
Trust" with Shawn Drover's on drums starting the intro which was followed by Chris Broderick's kick ass guitaring and David Ellefson's thundering bass... when the main riff kicked in Dave Mustaine appeared on stage, the crowd on seeing MEGADETH (all the four) in flesh and blood, especially Dave Mustaine, drove thousands of metal heads go bonkers and super excited… When Dave Mustaine sang the first line ‘
Lost in a dream Nothing's what it seems….', his very first snarl sent goose bumps and wild europhia to the crowd who all went animalistically wild and started hooting, howling, screaming, jumping and raising both their fists high up in the air to make the signs
\m/ \m/ in clusters...... it was an incredible sight to see thousands of fists swaying together to the first song, next up, was another classic "
Hangar 18", I have recorded this video in my cell and it has the entire crowd powerfully chanting rhythmically to these three syllables "
ME-GA-DETH, ME-GA-DETH…..", throughout the song…. thrilled and intensified by the high volt power pack opening, the crowd already started head-banging…
The next song progressed to "
She-wolf" another classic; a powerful riff by Dave Mustaine in the opening of this song further elevated the metal hormones of the crowd and let them into the wilderness of ecstasy,.when "she-wolf" ended,
Dave Mustaine for the first time, in a snarling way, interacted with the crowd, he said "
Hello Delhi, Are you feeling good?" the crowd responded "
Yeah" excitedly, Dave further snarled "
I hope you're having a good time!" the crowd responded "
YEAHHHH..... (more wildly and loudly this time)", Dave Mustaine then said "
Alright (snarling),
I now want you all to sing this song with me" and started the popular number "
A tout le monde", the moment he started singing the opening line '‘
Don't remember where I was, I realized life was a game…’ Dave Mustaine was followed by thousands of fans lyrically singing together word-to-word with him, it was indeed a kick-ass feeling to listen to the echoes of thousands of fans singing rhythmically together and in sync with the axe man.... "A tout le monde" was followed with ‘
Whose life’ and ‘
Public enemy no.1’ from their new album "Th1rte3n".....
When their 5th song ended, the stage was pitch black, they took a quick 1 minute break and when the lights came back, Dave Mustaine interacted with the crowd with his body language appeal and some gestures and moving from one side of the stage to the other and throwing flying kisses and waving to the crowd almost for a minute, while Dave Mustaine amused and enthralled the crowd, the crowd on the other hand chanted (as though under a spell) these three syllables "
WE-LOVE-YOU, WE-LOVE-YOU....." the whole ground echoed with this chant….. and then a few seconds later, Dave Mustaine grabs the Microphone and snarls "
Good eveninggg... oh! it feels so good to be back here…(pause)...
I have a question for you? How many of you are here, the last time we played?? ....... Crowd has a fading response, Dave Mustaine assumes "
This means that this is your first time right?” The crowd responds “
YEAHHH….”, Dave Mustaine exclaims “
bloody fucking cool!......
you know most people won’t make it all the way over here because they feel it’s not worth and don’t care, but I do, we do….... (pause, crowd roaring…)…
we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary of our platinum album “Countdown to extinction”, we’ll be going around the globe and playing that record....(couldn't catch this part due to the crowd's wild cheer, excuse me!)....;
the next song we are playing is from "Countdown to extinction", and starts with
‘Skin o’ my teeth’, followed by ‘
Architecture of aggression’, “
Foreclosure of a dream”,“
Sweating bullets”, “
This was my life”, after which Dave Mustaine did some talking, he addressed the crowd “
I will tell you the difference between the audience there in America and the Audience here in India. There, the people are spoiled but here I know how much efforts, pain and sacrifice you guys have made to come this far and watch this concert... Respect for you fans… thank you for coming…” and said "
our next song is “Countdown to extinction” and started hitting the notes to which the crowd amplified the sound by singing along with Dave Mustaine, after which followed by “
High speed dirt”, followed by “
Psychotron”, “
Captive honour” and “
Ashes in your Mouth”.
After “Ashes in your Mouth”, Shawn started hitting the bass drums and Dave Ellefson played the bass line to “
Peace Sells” to which the crowd roared and screamed on the chorus part, while the band mascot “Vic Rattlehead” made his first public appearance on stage. The last song of the mega concert was “
Holy Wars” for which the crowd had been literally crying wildly in three rhythmic syllables “
HO-LY-WARS, HO-LY-WARS….”,
It was during this song, Dave Mustaine introduced his band members to the crowd, “
the man on to my right is Chris Broderick, guitar…., on to my left, bass guitar, is David Ellefson and behind me on Drums is Shawn Drover” and when the song ended,
MEGADETH signed off by saying “
Thank you very much! You’ve been great, we’ve been MEGADETH”, however the music did not stop at the backdrop it was seamlessly looped into MP3 format while all the metal heads exhausted but still inundated and mesmerized with MEGADETH’s power pack performance, staggered merrily out of the gate to cherish the moment ever.
The band performed around 19 songs and had given their best and it was indeed on helluva show. Dave Mustaine was dressed up in black shirt, dark blue denims, black wrist bands, with clean shaven face, long blonde curly hair complimenting his white skin and persona..... The man looked fucking handsome and younger than ever, while David Ellefson, Chris Broderick and Shawn too looked good and remarkably performed their best. The size of the ground was huge; just the right size for more than 5,000 metal fans to head-bang and jump freely, a giant LED screen was displayed on the stage above, for all the metal fans, standing at the back to get a glimpse into Megadeth’s close-up. Megadeth has always been a cut above the metal crowd and they are technically a very tight band…. . Being one of the four giants in pioneering thrash metal (other three being – Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax). They don’t compromise riffs and melodies over speed. Everything was great that night except for the venue-commuting problem and the dusty environment while entering the main gates and inside. I would love to witness
MEGADETH again, if ever, it comes in and around Delhi…. It was one
CRAZY wild night \m/.
