Metal Up Your Ass, Via Satellite
Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax. “The Big Four.” The dark side of our heart just skipped a beat. In the neon 80s, while others were emoting and new-waving and prancing around in tights, these guys were just dingy leather shredding through the sinister territory that fell somewhere between Black Sabbath, Motorhead, the Misfits, and yeah, a little Van Halen, too.
Did we say “were shredding?” Oops. Somehow, even after a slate of contributing characters and controversies that would do any soap opera proud, these four rags to riches thrash bands are still chugging along. And for the first time, they’re all playing on the same tour, appearing across Europe this very month.
Today, the metal legends play in Sofia, Bulgaria, and though the tour won’t go beyond Europe, this particular concert will air via satellite this evening to over 800 theaters around the world, bringing the wailing and gnashing of teeth to the comfort of your local theater.
Why the tour isn’t coming to the U.S. remains a mystery, though our paranoid side thinks it’s all one big experiment to gauge the groups' draw because no one buys their records anymore. An equally good question may be why the whole thing didn’t happen 15 - 20 years ago.
Sure, there was the Dave Mustaine Megadeth/Metallica rivalry, Anthrax’s trillion lineup changes, Lars Ulrich’s RIAA annoyances along with Metallica’s steady rise/downfall, and Slayer’s seemingly endless controversies. But at the end of the day, it may simply be that this is happening now because the metal giants had to finally shrink small enough to all fit on one stage.
Regardless, for our money, there’s still nothing better than Side B of Reign in Blood, the whole of Ride the Lightning, the majority of Rust in Peace and a handful of Fistful of Metal. The power, the volume, the and the sheer speed of the songs that catapulted these four bands into the rock pantheon all remain to be beat. And if, for right now, this is the best chance we’ll get to see the classics performed live, we’ll take the four-hour show in THX.
The biggest question about this Big Four concert, though, is “Is it going to be weird?” Looking at a screen and headbanging to video of a live metal concert in a roomful of people who would all rather be at the performance not only seems strange - it raises some pretty serious questions of etiquette. Do we sit or stand? Bring popcorn or chains? Is it legal to hold up a lighter in a movie theater? Will the usher guy come in and try to count how many people are there? Will it sell out or will the crickets at Pacific Place be louder than the lead guitar? And perhaps most importantly, will there be a riot?
Because if there’s going to be a riot, we’re planning our rampage route now.
7:30 // AMC Pacific Place 11 and others // $18
