Thursday rolled around, and it was another glorious sunny day. I spent a little bit of it listening to my Megadeth records, but mainly I was busy. Around about 18:30 I started to get ready. I chose blue jeans, a Harley Davidson t-shirt that my sister gave me, and my blue denim jacket with the cut-off sleeves and the Anthrax and Celtic Frost patches. It was a perfect Metal outfit: if I was in the 80s. I got Rorn to spike up my bi-hawk and spray it with that evil hair-spray shit.
Eventually it was getting close to being time to leave, and so Rorn decided that I should take her to k5k's for the night. This was all fine, and so I took her there. With the benefit of hindsight I should have stayed there longer, but instead I hurried away, because the doors opened at 19:30.
I drove into town and parked by the university, then walked down to the Saint James. Outside were crowds of bogans, more than I'd seen anywhere for a very long time. I wasted no time entering, and found that it was full of bogans inside as well, most of them standing by the bar.
I'd never been in the St James before, but I found that it was really really beautiful: a grand old theatre. I found myself a spot on the sloping floor; leaning on a pillar that was holding up the balcony. It turned out that I was in for a long wait: a lesson to myself for turning up on time. I amused myself by looking around at all the amusing bogans. It was good, but standing on the spot was killing me. Looking back now, I kinda wish I'd had money for beer. Actually, I was probably thinking that as I stood there.
It was about 20:30 before the support band came on. I couldn't quite believe it: it had seemed like the longest wait ever. I'd never heard of this band, but that's not surprising: in this country support bands often seem to come from complete obscurity to manage to get a spot supporting international acts: it really makes you wonder who knows who.
Anyway, this band were called Just One Fix, and I'm guessing from their sound that they were raised on early 90s Metal, such as the Ministry album «Psalm 69» that contains the song they're most probably named after, Pantera's «Vulgar Display of Power», Megedeth's «Countdown to Extinction» and Metallica's black album. They were quite great: it's not often these days that you hear a band with such an old-school sound. They were also really excited to be there supporting Megadeth, and mentioned that often, which made the crowd roar. They also got the crowd to roar by singing songs about smoking dope. And they got a sizeable mosh-pit going down the front. All in all I think they did very well for themselves.
They played until maybe 21:10, and then we had to wait a while longer, until at about 21:30, when Megadeth hit the stage!!! I was very excited: this was the first time I'd ever seen a band that I actually liked and knew the songs of. And Dave Mustaine's hair was just as luxurious and shiny in real life as it looks in the photos!!!
Everyone rushed forward, and I started to make my way forward too. I came across an all too familiar dilemma: my passage to the mosh-pit was blocked by a whole lot of very large people who had no intention of moshing, and no intention of moving. I wasn't in too much of a hurry: they started with first one, and then another new song.
But by the third song, they were launching into «Wake Up Dead», and I was starting to get the impression that I should have used my waiting time to check the venue out, because I was getting the impression that where I was trying to wade to the front, there was actually a railing, and the mosh-pit was actually on a lower level. When I'd worked all this out, «In My Darkest Hour» was over, and I found it remarkably quick and easy to move to the side of the theatre and down the ramp to the mosh-pit during some new song with the drum solo tacked on the end of it: I even found it quite easy to work my way into it.
I found myself next to a guy who seemed to have a really crazy girlfriend: she would run out from his arms and wildly smash into someone, arms flailing madly, then he'd drag her back, in an endless flowing cycle. Maybe she was just really excited. The mosh pit was great: I just can't seem to enjoy guitar music without the contact with other people. I arrived in time for «Devil's Island», and couldn't quite believe my luck. I was having the time of my life.
They followed this with «Moto Psycho», and then Dave stopped to talk about how he "always gets himself in trouble" - with his mouth it turns out, as he launched into the anti-censorship song «Hook in Mouth».
This was followed by «Angry Again» off the «Last Action Hero» soundtrack, and then a blistering version of «Hanger 18». This was dynamite stuff to mosh to. He stopped again to tell us a story about how he'd been in Australia, and a taxi driver who was driving them to dinner had said "G'day" when it was night time and how stupid the taxi-driver was, and I wondered if he'd been advised to do this by someone who knew about the Australian-New Zealand rivalry that everyone buys into in this part of the world.
Anyway, all his talking led into «Sweating Bullets». At this stage there were these two guys in front of me, both in blue jeans and white t-shirts, and with long blond hair. I heard one say to the other one something about how some faggot had been pinching his arse. I found it really amusing, because I could see how they'd look like girls from behind. [Although I find it really fucked that people grope women in mosh pits].
Not too long after that, one of those big drunk guys came along. Maybe you know the ones: they put their arm around your neck, and then drag you on their quest to be a human battering ram. Anyway, I could take it, I've seen worse at Punk gigs, and I even managed to somehow disentangle myself from him and get away with just being a point on his manic crash-course. Anyway, he started smashing into the back of those two blond boys. I watched with fascination as they got progressively angrier, and then, they were turning and telling him to fuck off. AND then, as he continued, they started a fight. One of them jumped on his back while the other one started swinging punches at him. All this was happening right in front of me, and I couldn't believe it!! It was so bogan.
The fight only lasted about 10 seconds, if that, before, out of nowhere, a couple of bouncers jumped in and broke it up and took them away. I don't know how those bouncers move through the crowd so fast. It was quite amazing. Straight after that, they stopped playing again, and Dave wanted us to be silent, or he wasn't going to play the next song. I had a feeling he was going to play something very old, probably «Mechanix». Everyone else knew the same. Dave continued "Melbourne last night couldn't keep quiet. I want you to keep very quiet so you can hear what I'm gonna play. If someone next to you makes some noise, I want you to punch them in the head". I found this kinda offensive really, but also kinda funny considering the fight I'd witnessed just a minute before.
Anyway, he played the riff, and we all went wild. It was all very exciting and very Metal. I couldn't help but feel like those guys lost out, because it was «Mechanix», and it was followed up by «The Conjuring». Although by the end of that song the two guys in white were back: I guess maybe they convinced the bouncers that it was the other guy's fault.
Next Dave pulled out a twin-neck V and proceeded to play a very terrible slow acoustic song which I believe is called «Trust». He used this down time to introduce everyone to the band as well. I was quite surprised that it wasn't still Nick Menza on drums and Marty Friedman on guitar: their replacements looked pretty identical to me!
The show had been going for quite a while, but they still had some stuff in reserve, and the crowd knew it. They played «Symphony of Destruction», and then launched into «Peace Sells», which they stopped half way through to launch into a storming version of «Tornado of Souls», a really surprising choice. They then came back to «Peace Sells», and proceeded to have one of those rather cliché one-half-of-the-audience-versus-the-other-half-and-lets-see-who-can-be-the-loudest sing-a-longs. It was so Metal!!
Dave was really friendly and apologetic for not having been to New Zealand for such a long time [I think it's something like 10 years], and then they left the stage. But we knew they were coming back, because they hadn't played «Holy Wars» yet. They waited about five minutes before they came out and played it. And then it was over, in a shower of guitar picks into the audience. The house lights came on, and it was time to drag my sweaty carcass up the hill to my van, and go and pick up Rorn.
It was a great night out. They all spent a lot of time right down the front of the stage, playing their solos just a couple of feet away from the crowd, and played heaps of their old hits. But it still wasn't enough to ever convince me to see those anti-Napster bastards Metallica when they come.
