Three of America’s titans of heavy metal laid waste to Nassau Coliseum last night, as Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax played blistering sets for thousands of screaming metalheads.
The so-called American Carnage tour first hit New Jersey’s Izod Center back in August (my review here), and the second leg of the tour dropped opening act Testament in favor of New York’s own Anthrax, and came to Long Island last night under the sponsorship of Jagermeister, whose promotional material practically plastered every available surface of the venue.
Anthrax opened the set early in the evening, playing the New York region for the first time in years. While the band has been fronted by several singers over their long career, Joey Belladonna has rejoined the band, restoring what it generally considered to be Anthrax’s classic lineup. Belladonna proved to be more than capable of his taking back his former position Friday night, easily hitting the high notes on songs like Madhouse and A.I.R. He also broke out a headdress during the song Indians, getting massive applause from the hometown audience.
The rest of the band was in top form too, with guitarists Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano ripping through the riffs and shredding through solos. Bassist Frank Bello regularly played alongside Belladona, the sheer joy evident on both their faces. Anthrax also added a new, yet-to-be-recorded song to their setlist, announcing it as a treat for the homecoming show. Watch my video of Fight ‘Em Til You Can’t at the bottom of this page.
While the opening slot only gave the band time for a short setlist, fans still ate it up, and a full blown mosh pit opened up during final song I Am the Law. But with the arena barely half full, it was only a warm-up for what was still to come.
Megadeth took the stage next, for a stunning schooling in the art of thrash metal. This is the band’s third tour of the year, following a short headlining run in March and the first leg of American Carnage, and like the previous tours, saw the group play genre-defining album Rust in Peace in its entirety in celebration of the record’s 20th anniversary.
Frontman Dave Mustaine and his band wasted no time, ripping right into the distinctive opening riff of Holy Wars. Fans in the stands stood up and cheered while the crowd on the floor began jumping, moshing, and headbanging for all they were worth. Mustaine and his handpicked lead guitarist, Christ Broderick, are second to none when it comes to speed metal, and the duo made for an imposing lead guitar domination, trading off on the ever-building solos for the peak of Hanger 18 as the crowd chanted “Me-Ga-Deth!” between each part as the song built to its frenetic climax.
The Rust in Peace album is practically a textbook in thrash metal, and the band flawlessly powered their way through the hour long record. The infamously volatile Mustaine seemed to be in high spirits, smiling as he gushed about how much he enjoys watching Anthrax play, asking the crowd if they preferred being called Long Island or New York, and introducing the heart-wrenching Tornado of Souls as a “song about the weather.” In a new development on this leg of the tour, Megadeth’s mascot Vic Rattlehead, seen on the cover of virtually every Megadeth album, made an appearance during the bass-driven Dawn Patrol, the suited skeletal character silently stalking the stage and pointing a bony finger at the audience as Mustaine rasped the environmentally conscious lyrics - see the slideshow at the bottom of this article for a picture. The Rust in Peace album ended with the title track, but Megadeth still had plenty of music left in them.
The entire audience sang along to radio hit Trust, and even more enthusiastically to power ballad A Tout Le Monde (watch my video
Sweaty, hoarse, and bruised fans filled the hallways and concession areas as Jagermeister girls handed out branded merchandise, otherwise known as “free sh*t,” but Megadeth’s spectacular performance was far from the end of the evening. With the arena cut practically in half by the stage, the seats and floors of the Coliseum were well-packed by fans as everyone awaited Slayer, the undisputed heaviest of the original thrash metal acts.
Slayer opened their set with two songs off new album World Painted Blood, the eponymous title track and Hate Worldwide. The legions of Slayer fans that had been awaiting their favorite band responded ferociously, jumping, moshing, and crowdsurfing, one crowdsurfing fan gleefully clutching one of the many posted signs explicitly forbidding such activities as he tumbled over the heads of the packed audience.
Like Megadeth, Slayer has been playing 1990’s Seasons in the Abyss record in its entirety on each leg of this tour, and there was no introduction as the banded kicked it off with the vicious War Ensemble. Drummer Dave Lombardo’s heavy double bass kicks could be physically felt even in the furthest back sections of the arena on songs like Expendable Youth and especially album closer, Seasons in the Abyss. The sold-out floor was a nonstop crush of slamming bodies moshing and sliding across the beer-soaked floor as vocalist and bassist Tom Araya roared through Slayer’s nihilistic lyrics, and the always-fearsome looking Kerry King blasted through riffs and his signature atonal solos alongside fellow guitarist Jeff Hanneman.
The Seasons record features standard live Slayer songs such as Expendable Youth and Dead Skin Mask, but the band wrapped up with an additional four favorites, with the haunting South of Heaven and famous Raining Blood re-energizing the metal-crazed crowd. The band closed out the night with the Nazi-inspired Angel of Death, the usually stone-faced Araya visibly smiling as he watched several pits across the floor merge into one giant free-for-all. Like the night’s other acts, Kerry King made sure to encourage the audience to drink Jagermeister, knocking back a large shot on stage from an already half-finished bottle.
As the end of 2010 approaches, the American Carnage tour is sure to go down as one of the most metal tours in history. The guitar pyrotechnics of Megadeth and crushing sledgehammer-like Slayer songs combined for dozens of raw, ear-blasting concerts that left fans of each band more than satisfied. Even those attendees from last night who were kicked out for fighting or carried out from injuries no doubt enjoyed themselves until their exit, as they witnessed two of metal’s finest bands do what they do best.
As rumors of a ‘Big Four’ tour featuring Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer, and Metallica continue to crop up in interviews and online postings, anyone at Nassau last night can vouch for the sheer epicness of the ‘secondary three.’ Although fully experiencing the four hours of metal was exhausting, and adding Metallica into the mix makes one wonder what the limits of true live metal stamina are, the aging bands have in no way lost their dominating stage presence, and if American Carnage is only a prelude to a Big Four tour, those who saw Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax last night, at Izod, or any other of the tour dates already know an undisputed truth: Heavy metal is as alive, loud, and pissed off as ever. \m/
For more high quality photos of Megadeth's set, also check out Angela Datre's shots here.
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