What Was Your Favorite Show?
March 23, 2008 by Scott
I can honestly say that I have not been to as many Metal shows as some people, but the ones I have been to have been some of the most memorable moments in my life. The last show I was at was the ATR show at the beginning of this month and I’m sure your all tired of hearing me talk about that by now. While it was an awesome show it is not number 1 on my list but it’s in the top ten. Ozfest 97 was a great experience seeing Black Sabbath, Pantera and a bunch of other great bands. Saw The Misfits with Michael Graves fronting the band three times. I’m a bit young to have been able to see the original line-up so this was pretty cool to me and Graves did great covering the oldies as well as the American Psycho stuff…everything after that blows. Cannibal Corpse and Anthrax were cool as well on that tour. When I saw The Misfits open for Megadeth was one of the best shows I got to see, but not my favorite but close. So what was the best to me?
I saw Slayer at The 9:30 Club in D.C. back in 97 during the Diabulos In Musica 
tour. System Of A Down opened the show with Clutch following…it was a long wait through System Of A Down because I had never heard of them before and their live show was absolutely excruciating. Clutch was pretty cool but when you have 500 or more people waiting anxiously to see Slayer your kind of screwed no matter who you are. Imagine your in a band going on before Slayer and while your an established band everyone in the venue is screaming “Slayer-Slayer-Slayer” before you even get through your first song.
Not only was this a great show because it was Slayer but I got to go to signing session up in Baltimore before the show and got one of my prized possessions autographed by the band. I have a copy of ‘Til Death Do Us Part, a studio rehearsal session recordings from 1984 on vinyl from Jester Productions that I found in a record store in Woodbridge Virginia that actually sold records and cassettes. As far as I know and from what the sleeve says there are only 500 of these out there and I got Slayer to sign the back of it. Unfortunately this was back in 97 and Paul Bostaph was the current drummer and while he is a great drummer, Dave is the one in the picture from ‘84 so he signed off to the side. Maybe one day I’ll get to see Slayer again and get Dave Lombardo to sign it. That would allow me to die happy.
So may shows, how can I choose a favorite? Like you I will mention a couple shows that stand out here. Metallica when they toured for the Black Album was phenomenal. The pyramid stage, the pyro, and 3 straight hours of nothing but Metallica. I saw Queensryche on the Empire tour ( support act- Suicidal Tendencies ) and that was the tour when they first played all of mindcrime and that was also great. Now that I think about it if I have to name one show that was truly awesome, it would be Summer sanitarium from 2003 I believe. Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Mudvayne, Deftones and Linkin Park all playing absolutely great sets at the Gillete Stadium in Foxboro, MA. And say what you want about Limp Bizkit, but live those guys were great.