Yesterday the Swedish State Television (yup we have a state financed television) aired the Big Four gig in Gothenburg in all it's metal packed glory.
And even if I don't particularly care for any of these progenitors of thrash metal (Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and Metallica) I found the whole thing commendable.
Generally my feelings towards this subgenre of metal can be summarized in the typical Swedish way of pronouncing its name, "trash metal", but I can't help to be a bit enamored by the whole spectacle; prime time television filled with something that deffinitely can’t be categorized as mainstream culture. It might seem strange that a metal-head as myself don’t like any of these legends, and while I can think of a cazillion bands I’d rather listen to, I certainly acknowledge their importance and influence. Happy that my girlfriend feel the same about them, we had the TV going in the background and checking in now and then to see/hear how these old timers fared.
Sad to say, we missed 99% of Anthrax, and they were honestly the one band that I kind of like (after all, Among the Living IS a magnificent album) so that was a bit of a bummer. But seeing that Scott Ian was at home on parent leave, being replaced by Andreas Kisser of Sepultura fame, I shrugged it off. Anthrax without Scott Ian just isn’t Anthrax if you catch my drift (even if Caught In a Mosh is a song that makes me wanna stagedive from the nearest elevated surface).
What to say about Megadeth? I haven’t got the slightest clue to why anyone proudly would say that they like that atrocity of a band. I seriously thought that my brain was dislodged a bit from the horrible horrible vocals and uninspired riffing. And to give any attention to Dave Mustaine, the born-again Ted Nugent of metal, is just a waste of energy. Yeah I will continue to avoid this band like door-knocking, plague-smitten Jehova’s Witnesses.
Slayer; the band that everyone who’s into extreme music must adore. Well that’s according to the unwritten rules of underground etiquette at least. But when it comes to that sort of scene-policing and ”musts” I just simply shake my head and turn my back. That’s right, I don’t like Slayer. Or rather, to clarify myself, I like two or three songs from the band. But I’ll give it to them; they are a consistent live-band. Tight, aggressive and intense … and not to forget, full of stamina since it’s like they played the same song in the same high tempo over and over again from start to finish (with the possible exception of Mandatory Suicide). As with Anthrax, the lacked one original guitarist (Jeff Hanneman) who was replaced by Gary Holt from Exodus (who by the way should have been included on the bill… who says that the Big Four can’t be five?). If you like Slayer, I guess it was good, but to me it just sounded like a looooong song with some silence thrown in for good measure.
Metallica was like… well … Metallica. They presented a well put together set I guess, but the energy was dampened by overly many of their more mellow songs. There’s no question that they are accomplished showmen, but the whole thing was severly marred by Mr. Ulrich’s shoddy drumming. Or as my girlfriend commented; ”Even Rick Allen (drummer in Def Leppard) is better, and he’s only got one arm!”.
Well, even if I don’t like the bands that much (apart from the earlier mentioned Anthrax record and the three first Metallica albums in small doses), I must say that the whole thing was a well concieved spectacle with the airing on national television, and stand as a proof that metal as a genre really is respected and worthy of public attention in Sweden.
Highlights: James Hetfield wearing a Ghost-shirt, and the fact that E. of Watain fame was in the ”Metallica expert panel”.
