Heaven And Hell, Megadeth live!

Heaven And Hell, Megadeth
Allstate Arena, Rosemont
Saturday, May 5, 2007

Metalheads, you may want to turn away from your screen and not read the next paragraph. Words no heavy music fan wants to say or read will appear. This is your last warning.

Click here for more pics from the show.

O.K., here it goes: Black Sabbath, er Heaven And Hell, were really boring Saturday night. There, it has been said. I feel horrible, like a traitor, like I told my mother I no longer love her, but a concert review is supposed to reflect the truth about a show. And the truth about Ronnie James Dio’s reunion with Black Sabbath is the intensity didn’t match the hype.

Don’t misunderstand that as the band didn’t sound good, though. Dio is still spectacular. That a voice so powerful can come from the body of a five-foot-five (with thick-heeled boots), 120-pound (soaking wet) person still amazes; that it now comes from a five-foot-five, 120-pound 64-year old is even more mind-boggling. The rhythm section of bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Vinny Appice (who played on two of three Dio-fronted Sabbath studio records) was flawless, and guitarist Tony Iommi is also still on top of his game. Though his tone didn’t overpower as consistently as it should have, his playing effortlessly shifted between sharp (“Voodoo”, gloomy (“After All (The Dead)”, and paralyzingly heavy (“Shadow Of The Wind” depending on what the song called for.

Heaven And Hell’s underwhelming performance had nothing to do with Butler and Iommi’s lack of stage presence, either. Number one, they’ve never done much more onstage than take a few steps forward and back, and number two, guitarists Robert Flynn and Phil Demmel of openers Machine Head jumped, posed like rock stars, cussed, and threw drinks into the crowd, and they were still boring. H&H’s biggest problem was they let the set bog down in slow-to-medtempo tunes, and every time the horses did start galloping, the reins were immediately pulled back to a trot. “Mob Rules”was sandwiched between “After All” and “Children Of The Sea,” “Lady Evil” between “Children” and “I,” and “Voodoo” between “Sign Of The Southern Cross”and “The Devil Cried.”These slower tunes are all classics and staples of a band who single-handedly invented doom metal, but Dio’s time in Sabbath wasn’t defined by just this style. Following every uptempo track with a graveyard anthem, no matter how good, choked the momentum.

It was probably a good thing Allstate’s floor section was seated instead of the usual general-admission, standing-room heavy metal concert setup, because those folding chairs were needed to sit through “I”followed by “The Sign Of The Southern Cross”. But that was nothing compared to one four-song sequence where three of the songs were “Falling Off The Edge Of The World,” “The Devil Cried,” and a fucking Appice drum solo. Throwing in something like “Wishing Well”or any number of songs like “Time Machine,” “TV Crimes,” or “Master Of Insanity” from Dehumanizer would have been an easy way to break up the night’s monotony. “Die Young” was a savior toward the end of the set and followed by “Heaven And Hell” things finally picked up. But then came the four-minute instrumental breakdown – the perfect show-ending buzz kill.

These were all things Heaven And Hell could have prevented. What they couldn’t, or at least couldn’t foresee, was direct-support act Megadeth would blow them away and wipe out the crowd before they even walked onstage. If, before this tour, you thought Megadeth, a band now on their umpteenth lineup (currently frontman/guitarist Dave Mustaine, bassist James LoMenzo, guitarist Glen Drover, and drummer Shawn Drover – who many heavy metal fans gave up on long ago – would trump the much-anticipated, 15-years-in-the-making Dio-era Sabbath reunion, you were delusional . . . but ultimately correct.

Mustaine wasted no time between songs (only talking briefly once, five songs into the set, to tell the audience he wouldn’t be talking much), and that was fine considering his band’s nearly impenetrable setlist. A tepid run through opener “Sleepwalker” from United Abominations (May 15th) was the only downside of an otherwise ferocious 40 minutes. Everybody knows the best Megadeth are angry Megadeth, and a setlist that included “Take No Prisoners,” “Tornado Of Souls,” “Washington Is Next” (another new one), and “Holy Wars . . . The Punishment Due”proved Mustaine is an angry fella once again. It wasn’t just hostility that made their set outstanding, though, it was also pure energy, something the Allstate crowd gladly fed off during fan favorites such as “Symphony Of Destruction” and “Wake Up Dead,” and, more importantly, something sorely missing during Heaven And Hell.

– Trevor Fisher

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly