Gigantour III at Hammerstein Ballroom

I was pretty excited about this show before going; it was Megadeth, after all, and even though I've seen Dave Mustaine and his latest group of instrument-wielding henchmen far too many times over the past three years (Six! Six! What the hell is wrong with me?), they've made up for my terrible first viewing so many times at this point that it's hard not to get psyched up about the upcoming thrashing. Then I found out that Children of Bodom was on the bill.

As I've mentioned in the past, Children of Bodom exerts a strange and powerful influence over me, not unlike that of Megadeth. Putting the two of them on the same bill was a stroke of pure genius, and while people make jokes about a show being too much rock to handle, in this case it was nearly the truth: I thrashed and banged so hard during the two sets that I couldn't sleep properly for the next two days from my aching neck and shoulders and had to call in sick. It's a measure of a good old metal time when you're not only physically exhausted but slightly damaged, too.

What's odd - for me, anyway - about seeing any band (whether I know them well or not) live is that I don't remember very much of the music afterward. Take this show, for example. I know Job for a Cowboy played some wretched-sounding sludge that made anticipating Bodom that much sweeter, like an upcoming feast for a starving man (seriously, they were that bad). I know I was making up words to "Angels Don't Kill" and "Sixpounder" because I was so hyped up I had to scream something, even if they weren't technically the right lyrics. I know my friends and I retreated to the downstairs bar while In Flames played because they were in serious danger of becoming the crap sandwich between two buns of awesome and we had some bullshitting to do. And I know I nearly removed my skull from my neck during "Hangar 18," and that I thought that Chris Broderick did a better job on the Spanish guitar bridge in "Holy Wars" than Glen Drover, and seemed to have more stage presence, too. But I don't really remember much else, and when I try to think of the songs I do know, I just hear the studio versions. Soon enough, the mental pictures from this show will merge with those from other shows, and - if I'm lucky - I'll be left with one framing shot from the whole night, and the feeling that I had a great time.