When it comes to live albums, for it to be a successful and worthwhile adventure, you need to have a set list that not only commends the work done on the album that you are promoting on that current tour, but has the best tracks available from your back catalogue. You also need to have a band that is tight, raucous and so damn energetic that you can feel that pumping through your speakers when you play it at home. On the first point, this album does a pretty fair effort on the collection of songs recorded. On the second point... well...
Dave's vocals are fine here, but his actual SINGING on some of these songs is almost diabolical. I know in some ways that's a tautology, because his singing has never been the main focus of what makes Megadeth great. But in some places he's just all up in the air, no focus, no attitude. Where the hell is the attitude in "Wake Up Dead"? The lyrics are just floated out there, and let's get on with the song. It really loses its drive because of it. This is a criticism only for the fact that it is the way he sings these songs that gives it the real anger that they were written with, and if they aren't sung 'correctly' the they lose a bit of their power. Judge that against the following song, "In My Darkest Hour", which really needs to be sung right, and it is. It doesn't need the attitude as much as the angst, which is delivered well enough. This is a small and perhaps petty outlook, but this is what Megadeth is, attitude and angst, and if the leader isn't giving off the right signals, then they cannot possibly come across in the right light. "Reckoning Day". What the hell was happening there?! And yet "Angry Again" is perfect! Come on Dave.
Glen Drover is just not very good. For a guy who is in a supremely high profile metal band, his technical ability is very low. And I know he has had to come in following a couple of pretty amazingly technically brilliant guitarists in Marty Friedman and Al Pitrelli, but if you are going to play someone else's material, you either have to play it the way they did and well, or make it your own and play it well. I have no real argument with the songs he has been involved with from The System Has Failed album (though he didn't write or record them), but in the main the older songs really are lacking in his guitaring. Absolutely I am biased, because I had the misfortune to see him completely fuck up the middle part of "Holy Wars" in Sydney in 2004, so much so that it was embarrassing. James McDonough on bass and Shawn Drover on drums are both solid without being anything outstanding. As much as Dave gives them grief, Pitrelli and Jimmy DeGrasso were (and are) far better on their instruments than the Drover brothers.
The set list here is well balanced between the songs that are from the current album they are touring on, and all eras of the band. The dragging feature for me is that the new songs, with the possible exception of "Die Dead Enough" just aren't very interesting, and in the main the other songs that were on the previous tour, and found themselves on Megadeth's first live album Rude Awakening, sounded much better on that release. And the older songs obviously sound more upbeat and aggressive, because they are and they were! Compare the drudgery of "I'll Be There' and then the excitement that bursts immediately following with "Tornado of Souls". It's no contest.
Thus we have an interesting comparison between band members and released music. This line up of Megadeth would be close to its least interesting, and some of the songs close to its least interesting. When the old songs come on the album lights up, and yet when the newer songs are on it is like a morgue. In the long run, as an overall package, there are better Megadeth live releases out there.
Rating: "You feel my fingertips, you won't forget my lips". 3.5/5
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