Reviewed By: Nabill Phukan
MTV Xtreme was held in the Buddh International Circuit, Greater Noida. The headlining act were the thrash metal giants, Megadeth. It was a rock concert and an extreme sports event also featuring Parkour specialist Ryan doyle and legendary stunt rider Mattie Griffin. I simply went to witness Megadeth so here is what unfolded.
The opening bands were Blakc, Providence, Parikrama, Indus Creed and Pentagram respectively. All of them kicked ass on stage and woke up the headbanger in everyone though Pentagram did piss off the crowd by taking too long to start performing. But it was a treat to watch all of them put on such blistering performances.
After a short while the ‘goosebumps moment’ arrived and Megadeth happened. The crowd roared and the barricades almost fell off
as they started the evening with Hangar 18. The bouncers had the worst time trying to keep everything in control at the front. It was insane. Megadeth followed up with “In My Darkest Hour” giving the crowd some time to settle down but nobody was ready to calm down yet. By that time I had no idea where my kid brother was. Lost in the “Mosh” maybe. The other songs in their setlist comprised of tracks like She-Wolf, Set The World Afire, Sweating Bullets, Kingmaker, Devil’s Island, Symphony Of Destruction, Peace Sells, Holy Wars..The Punishment Due.
A section of the crowd did try to synchronise by chanting ‘Megadeth’ after every riff(intro) on the song Symphony of Destruction. The circle pits erupted on the songs She-Wolf, Peace Sells and Holy Wars. The sound system that was provided was quite wicked but during the song Set The World Afire, the sound on the output vanished for a minute and we could only hear the stage monitors. Apart from this tiny glitch and the fact that the camera almost bumped into Dave Mustaine’s head, it was a great show.
The arrangements for the V.I.P. ticket holders was pathetic. Apparently the irony was that they had paid two thousand bucks more just to be seated, way behind the front barricade in a metal concert. There were no complementaries either. I met a lot of aggrieved V.I.P. ticket holders in the general stand.
Megadeth on the other hand offered what the fans expected the most, a spetacular performance with Dave Mustaine’s snarly vocals
and epic guitar solos, Dave Ellefson’s booming bass guitar and Shaun Drover as usual was at his best. It was mesmerising to watch guitar virtuoso Chris Broderick set the stage ablaze along with the three legends.
The bouncers were asked to throw the guitar picks at the crowd but they played everyone by keeping all of it but thanks to a friend from backstage, we did get souvenirs 😉
