See the full Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer slideshow.
The Jagermeister Music Tour
It added a little bit extra awesomeness that the unholy trinity of Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer landed in our fair city on Sunday, the holy day.
Too bad for the prudish among us, because three-fourths of thrash metal's Big Four suitably defiled downtown Miami with a show that was heavy on nostalgia, but in the best way possible. All three bands are legends, and with reason. With some two-and-a-half decades each under their belt, all three acts continue to perform with levels of skill and energy that make their not-cheap concert tickets well worth every penny.
Opening the night was Anthrax, billed as "special guests" and thus were relegated to a shorter set -- about 30 minutes -- than the other two bands. It was a good quick-hit, warm-up set though. Despite all the confusion around the state of Anthrax and the band's future, together onstage, the guys play as if it were the '80s again (plus some extra wrinkles, and lots of gray beard hairs).
With Anthrax's longest-lasting singer, Joey Belladonna, back as frontman, the set concentrated on his era of material. It's the classic Anthrax canon, and live, it really argued for why Belladonna was and is Anthrax's best singer to date. His voice still soars and remains supple and expressive, and though it can seem over-the-top, his pantomiming of the lyrics entertains. (He could also skip running around in the ceremonial feathered headdress during "Indians" -- "Cry, cry, cry for the Indians!" -- but a bit of cheese is lovably par for the course in metal.)
With both bands enjoying more or less equal stature, Megadeth and Slayer are technically co-headliners on the tour, but last night, Megadeth went on right after Anthrax. The set was something of a slow-burner, starting out strong, plateauing in energy around the middle, then ramping up, surprisingly, at the end. Part of this, perhaps, was because of the nature of the band's set, a run-through of all of its landmark album, Rust in Peace, end to end.
If this is your favorite album, it's awesome to hear it in order, live, but if there are stretches that don't grab you as much, it's also easy to start zoning out. As bands playing classic albums continues as a trend, I may be the only music fan who doesn't necessarily love the practice. It robs the set of some element of surprise, but so be it.
And after Rust in Peace proper finished, Mustaine seemed to let his hair down -- uh, figuratively, as his trademark locks were whipping in the wind from the first note. After a brief break, he reappeared in party gear -- a T-shirt! -- and no less than a double-neck guitar and a newfound sense of almost-fun.
Live, Slayer is absolutely relentless in speed and volume. Those 30-something Marshall speaker cabinets onstage may largely have been for show, but the sound levels were still there. In short, the band comes on like a full-on sensory assault -- and the effect is actually, in a way, calming. There is so much going on, so loud and so fast, that everything runs together into a total body experience and it is impossible to think about anything else. Slayer destroys all extraneous thoughts; there is only Slayer. It's actually pretty Zen.
