MegaDeth definitely mega-ROCKED Hollywood Casino Amphitheater again on September 26th with their Destroy All Enemies Tour. They’ve played here before, but never with new guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari! MegaDeth managed to bring some big bands on this tour, Mudvayne and All That Remains. It was a perfect fall night and glad the rain stayed away for this one.
Now I’ve seen MegaDeth multiple times previously, but tonights performance really blew the others out of the water. First and foremost, Mudvayne and All That Remains sets will have to be discussed before I go in-depth on MegaDeths show.
The first opener of the night was the All That Remains . Now as someone who has never listened to All That Remains, they were pretty good. I enjoyed the technical guitar riffing, the blast beat drumming, and the buzzsaw screaming. The bands set wasn’t too long either, it was the PERFECT runtime for an opening band. All That Remains was a great time and if I ever had to see them again, it wouldn’t be so bad.
However, the Mudvayne show was a hassle to get through. It wasn’t that they sounded awful, but it was just very boring. It was just song after song after song, and then a 5 minute long speech from Chad Gray about mental health and the issues he’s had to deal with in his life. I didn’t hate that at all, I thought it was very nice of someone in such a position of power with his microphone to bring up these issues. That speech could’ve changed one persons life, and that’s all it takes. My favorite part of the Mudvayne set was their performance of Dig. We later would see one of the guitarist casually walking through the crowd in full makeup (and VERY FEW people noticed , it was quite fun to witness this).
Now for the MAIN EVENT, MegaDeth. They came on at around 9:00 PM and opened up with the song “The Sick, The Dying, and The Dead”. It was their best opening yet too, with a plague doctor walking out with a wooden cart full of bodies. The Plauge doctor went on to mimic the words playing off the speaks, “bring out your dead, bring out your dead”.
After this bombastic intro, MegaDeth went into their next few songs. Dave and the gang managed to play 5 songs that I personally never heard them play before as well. They managed to play, “Washington is Next!”, “Skin O’ My Teeth”, “Wake Up Dead”, “Countdown to Extinction”, and “Mechanix”. MegaDeth’s show was an amazing spectacle and the first note played was as magical as the infamous words spoken by Dave at the end of each show. “You’ve been great, we’ve been MegaDeth. Goodnight!”
