Megadeth brought the noise at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre

The ominous monsoon skies threatened last night’s Megadeth show at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, but Mother Nature couldn’t come close to stopping the heavy metal gods.

We arrived late due to traffic heading west but could hear opener All That Remains from the parking lot while being offered Megadeth shirts for less than half of what they were going for inside the venue. The purveyor of these obvious bootlegs was fast-moving and even faster-talking, but we managed to slide by him without becoming his prey. Score one for the reviewer, I suppose.

As we walked to the gate after securing our tickets, heads were turning as if on a swivel to gawk at a not-so-subtle cry for attention walking through the lines in a see-through mesh shirt and some well-placed bondage-style straps. It was clear this was not going to be just any show, but even a stone-faced exhibitionist wasn’t going to steal Megadeth’s thunder. This was a crowd intent on having a good time.

By the time the impending storm became more of a non-soon than a monsoon, opening act All That Remains was practically finished with their set and we were safely in our seats. The heat of the day and the mugginess of the air seemed to be zapping the majority of the energy in the amphitheater. Only a few hardy All That Remains fans were up standing and cheering, and the band seemed to be out of gas as well. Hopefully, the beginning of their set had more energy.

From what we heard, the band seem to specialize in the kind of generic, heavy metal music that would have been popular back in the day when people still cruised Metrocenter. I can almost hear it coming out of the suped-up muscle cars going slowly past the former Golf-n-Stuff (now Castles and Coasters).

A little breeze began to filter through the covered seating area as Mudvayne's crew started to sound check, but the seats were only a little more than half full. This was either due to traffic, people guzzling $18 beers, a lack of interest in the opening acts or the heat.

I’d have to go with the latter because it seemed to be what everyone was talking about. There were two guys in front of us that we started talking to about how motherfucking hot it was and one of them shared that Greg Tribbett, the lead guitar player of Mudvayne, got him drunk for the first time in Pekin, Illinois, when he was in middle school back in the late '80s.

Yikes.
As Mudvayne got going, people filed in and the band roared through a 10- or 11-song set that got a good response from the crowd. If you've ever seen them, they put on quite the spectacle with some pretty satanic-looking makeup and stage moves. Bassist Sean Martinie stole the show as both the most interesting and musically talented member of the band. The man can slap a bass, that's for sure.

Their schtick wasn't fooling some members of the crowd, though. My seatmate said, “If you're going to try and look so weird, you should also sound weird,” and while I agreed with her, it wasn't flying with our new friend from Pekin. While Mudvayne weren’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination and had some pretty decent and definitely heavy riffs, they never really matched their sound to their look.

Singer Chad Gray gave two pretty impassioned speeches during their hour-long set about how being a heavy metal kid saved his life while also imploring the crowd to have a good time and remember that we were all just a bunch of “heavy metal kids” regardless of our age. This got the crowd going and Mudvayne seemed to build their own enthusiasm to match the crowd, but I never really caught on to why Gray kept pantomiming that he was shooting himself in the head or the mouth. It just didn't seem to fit.

While Mudvayne was wrapping up, we hit the bathrooms and took a little stroll around to check out the merch options and get a drink. $22 later, we had a Dr. Pepper and a Powerade and said, “No thanks” to the long merch line waiting to pay $45 for another black T-shirt. I bet there were almost 7,500 black T-shirts already in the place. Do we really need another?

Finally, though, the moment arrived and Megadeth took the stage and ripped through the title track to their latest record, “The Sick, They Dying…and the Dead,” setting the tone for the evening. Dave Mustaine's voice was in a fine state, and the band sounded great. This was just the first of 16 songs and other than the occasional break to change guitars, Megadeth never let up.

Guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari traded riffs with Mustaine throughout the set, and it was awesome to see the band’s venerable leader step into the shadows to give Mäntysaari the spotlight time and time again. Bassist James LoMenzo was solid as hell, though from our short distance from the stage he occasionally looked like either Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer’s bass-playing character from "This Is Spinal Tap") or Iggy Pop, depending on the angle.

Drummer Dirk Verbeuren had a perpetual smile on his face as he kept everything together behind the other three dudes, and the crowd was eating it up. As early as the short break between “Hangar 18” and “Sweating Bullets,” they were chanting “Megadeth! Megadeth!” which happened anytime there was a short break in the action.

Megadeth fans are devoted … except for one young lady sitting a couple rows in front of us who was busy shopping for pants on what looked like either Temu or Amazon, as the band rocked out on “Skin of My Teeth” and “This Was My Life.” My seatmate was disgusted by this.

All the same, Megadeth put smiles on 99% of the crowd’s faces. Standout songs like “Trust” and “Peace Sells” made it easy to forget there were even two other bands on the bill, but when Megadeth ripped through “Mechanix” it was sheer bliss.

That's one heavy riff that Mustaine kept from his days in Metallica. Personally, I'm now a bigger fan of Megadeth's version.

After an encore of “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due,” Mustaine and his bandmates tossed their picks, drumsticks and wristbands to the crowd, took a bow, and headed off into the night. Heavy metal gods: 1; non-soon: 0, and fans – 100%. I'm already looking forward to the next tour.