Images by Travis Tutwiler
Bereft of an Underwood typewriter and a mahogany desk, I’ve established (today’s generation would say “posted up;” I weep for the future of language) myself on the patio beneath a leaden sky on this unseasonably warm day, effecting my most literary Lord of the Manor pose. Accompanied by the gentlemen’s standard three fingers of The Macallan and a Patel Royale, I now set about capturing the events of the previous night’s metal maelstrom, courtesy of one Dave Mustaine and his current band of merry-makers. If given the opportunity, I wonder if Hemingway would have written about Megadeth. Digressions…
My history with Megadeth goes back as far as the early 1990s and the release of the band’s seminal Countdown to Extinction album. You see Dear Reader, I’m a bit of a late-bloomer when it comes to the thrash movement (always late to the party). Therein lies perhaps the reason for my disdain for the mosh-pit. With all due respect to that culture, I simply don’t get it. Why not form a fight club or some such to alleviate all that aggression and let me watch the show in peace? Digressions…
Once introduced to Megadeth through the live video clip for “Skin ‘o My Teeth,” I found myself immersed in the band’s back catalog to date. I very quickly learned what I had been missing, particularly in the case of the Rust In Peace album, unabashedly the standard-bearer for all thrash before or since, in my never humble opinion. It’s no accident Megadeth’s live set continues to feature songs from this album, more than any other in the band’s catalog some 25 years or more after its release. To wit: On this night, no less than five of the band’s fifteen songs were culled from this masterpiece, including show opener “Hangar 18.” This song has an identity all its own due to its alien-nation conspiracy theory subject matter; anomalous in Megadeth’s otherwise politically rife lyrical canon. I read someplace Dave Mustaine credits this to then-drummer Nick Menza’s sometimes otherworldly bent. Whatever the case, it’s a ripper and seemed turbo-charged last night in Dallas (assuming that’s possible for a Megadeth song)!