Seeing Megadeth AND Slayer in one night was an epic experience that was hard to put into words. All my attempts tonight have ended up sounding kind of like “abmmurrrghdduuughhhhfff”.
A couple of weeks ago however,with the gig fresh in my mind, I managed to put down a few words for Metal As Fuck.
A live performance review is supposed to be a carefully written critical account of an event, stemming from the reviewer’s observations and notes on the band’s performance, song selection and delivery, the audio quality, lighting and other venue-influenced factors, and the crowd response.
Fuck me. This is just not that kind of review.
I read a couple of other reviews of the night as well. The dude reviewing for FasterLouder clearly didn’t like Megadeth at all, and laid on the Slayer worship a bit thick. While you don’t have to like every band, some of the comments in this review were rather inaccurate. I don’t think there’s another reviewer on the planet who would refer to any Megadeth song as “pop-thrash”, for example. I’m serious, check it out:
We went home exhausted, sweaty and really happy, but if there was one part of the night that was negative it was the moronic behaviour of the hardcore Slayer fans during their set. Fucking idiots charging around with fists swinging shoving over anyone who accidentally got in their way – that’s the kind of thing I’d expect at a metalcore gig. And I was (deliberately) well back for that part of the show.
There’s this awards program run by AWIA each year, for Western Australian sites since 2005 and as of this year, nationally. I always enter all of the good client work that Clever Starfish, the web business I run with my partner Dave, produces. We won the best small business site category in 2007 and although we had three finalists in 2008 (including two sites in one category), no winners.
This year for a laugh I entered my blogs into the blog category, which is judged mostly on content and usability and hardly at all on design, code etc like the other categories.
The crazy news is that I’m one of three finalists.
Clever Starfish has two finalists in three categories as well. There’s still some more finalists from SA and QLD that are not announced until later this month but the list of so far is available on the web awards web site.
The winners are announced at a dinner on November 6 – an el-swisho affair billed as “black tie with a web twist” which I generally take to mean I can wear big boots, fishnet stockings and have crazy hair.
Those busy little metalheads over at Metal As Fuck are celebrating six months of publishing. It might sound like an odd anniversary to be hailing but the site has come such a phenomenally long way since it started that it’s not even funny. There’s so much great content coming out each week it’s hard to keep up.
I’ve got a few pieces published over there, including:
And also the Wacken series – five articles on the history of the festival co-written with Leticia, and then my diary series which is still to be completed. I’ve got more stuff to write up too, including an interview with Nervecell from Wacken. If only I didn’t have to go to work. Sigh…
So, congratulations to Leticia and Foss and the other people doing the hard work over there. I can’t wait to see what the next six months brings!
Also, I’m hoping hoping hoping that Metal As Fuck makes it into the Australian Web Awards finalists. That would really be something, no?
I found this on Bravewords: Boo Davis a designer who makes metal-inspired quilts under the name Quiltsrÿche. Yes, seriously.
The Starfish have done a couple of quilting web sites so I know it’s a big industry. But I’m not quite sure what to think of this.
On one hand, I prefer my bed linen to be plain coloured and preferably dark. On the other, maybe a metal quilt with old t-shirts incorporated like this custom quilt could solve our mounting t-shirt problem. Hmmm.
Full disclosure, up front: I am a massive Monster Magnet fan.
A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to interview Dave Wyndorf for Metal As Fuck. Being a huge fan, it was pretty nerve-wracking, but apart from me saying a couple of dumb arse things it went quite well – he was super nice and very funny. Thanks to Leticia for setting it up!
Although there are obvious questions that you need to get through when doing an interview to promote a tour, I did try not to ask him the really obvious questions that everyone asks. For example, I’d just read three separate pieces where he went into detail about the circumstances of his drug overdose so I didn’t feel compelled to recover that ground. And I would have loved to follow up with some of the questions some more – for example, he seemed to really get into the question about his influences – but as he was on what he described as the “interview train” I was very mindful of getting everything I wanted to in within the 15 minute time limit.
Then last week was the actual show, which I reviewed for FasterLouder. I’d read a review of the Melbourne show, where the reviewer said he was disappointed by the fact that the band were wearing regular clothes and not the rock god outfits he was expecting – which I thought showed a bit of ignorance as to the history of the band. In 2006 Dave Wyndorf accidentally overdosed on sleeping pills, prescribed to help him cope with a crazy touring schedule. Since resuming touring in 2008 he has been, shall we say, not in premium physical condition. The fact that the band is even together and touring is a minor miracle in itself, and most fans are happy to see Wyndorf alive and healthy and making music, and don’t concern themselves with the fact that he’s currently not able to fit into his old leather pants. And I don’t think that reviewer’s other comments were right on either, especially as this other review of the same night painted a different picture.
Back to the Perth show: it was epic. Having already seen the set list (identical for both the Melbourne and Sydney shows) I did something I don’t often get to do these days – I stood up against the front barrier for the entire show and did not take any notes. I screamed myself hoarse – along with every one else there – and even caught one of Ed Mundell’s guitar picks (and Dave caught another one). It was a top fucking night. As had mentioned in the interview, the setlist was chock full of early material. It was great even though a few of my personal favourites didn’t make it in – I love the title track of 2007’s 4-Way Diablo, for example, and Kiss of the Scorpion, and the God Says No title track, and I adore Doomsday which also didn’t make the cut. Although as a side note: for some reason whenever I hear “it’s doomsday, it’s doomsday” in my head the lyric goes “it’s Tuesday, it’s Tuesday”. I have no idea why. I don’t have any particularly violent aversion to Tuesdays, honestly.
A couple of other interesting things happened during the show. When we arrived, before The Devil Rides Out came on, I set up position on the barrier at the front and didn’t budge the whole night. Sometime after the openers but before the main act, I was accosted by a drunkish girl who asked me if I was a big fan – because she’d seen me pick my spot right from the moment I walked in – and to tell me they were her favourite band EVER and it was going to be amazing and she’d made all her friends come even though they weren’t familiar with the band but she was sure they were going to have a great time.
Later, I saw Jim Baglino, the bass player from Monster Magnet, in the photo pit talking to this chick. I didn’t see where he came from or how he ended up talking to her, but a security guard was trying to tell him he couldn’t be there. He pulled out an “All Access” pass from one back pocket but the security dude was still not having any of it. Another security guard came over and told the first dude to stop accosting the band. Before Jim went out back he reached into another pocket and gave the chick and her friend backstage passes. So I guess she got to meet her favourite band of all time.
A friend of mine said that she could fully imagine that even if Johnny Depp gained 100 pounds, she would still consider him sexy. Well, Dave Wydorf has the moves and the voice and while he may not look like the rock god of four years ago… he’s still got it. I can’t wait to hear what they do next.
But let’s just go back to the classic Monster Magnet video for a moment, shall we? Make sure you watch past the 1:30 mark where all the dancing girls and bling starts.
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