“You were Atlanta! We were Megadeth! See you guys next time!”

I am in a South Florida amphitheater sitting in a trailer watching Zoolander and listening to the tour manager from Fear factory tell us that ”there’s 80/20 ratio of girls to guys at Deftones shows.” Apparently, one tech from the Fear Factory crew “works for the Deftones and gets so much p*&%y Bro, it’s awesome!” I am definitely in a world of discomfort and it’s only day three.

The first night was held in Gwinnett arena which holds 10,000-12,000 humans.



Nowhere close to a third of those people decided to come so the stage was pushed as close to the entrance to as possible. Every band had claimed their own plot of concrete to assemble the drum sets. Everyone was setting up their drums on huge rolling risers covered in grey carpet. I asked where to get to find a riser and was told the band should've brought their own. Awesome. It takes Dream Theater’s drumtech at least an hour and a half to set up their 36 piece drum monster. It’s 2005. Something’s wrong.














Dillinger was herded into the right corner of the stage. Within the first thirty seconds Greg smashed a mic stand over the monitors and Ben was knocking over the cabinets. The crowd wasn’t ready for Dillinger. A couple of dudes stood in the front cheering as the rest stared in terrified chaos. Crew and techs began to spread the word and then before we knew it stage left was loaded with onlookers. “We’re really excited you guys are on the tour! You bring new life into this thing.”















Since we’re all in our late 20’s most crew here treat us like were new to touring. The stage manager hates us. Having Greg and Ben thrash and throw monitors, cabinets, and stands doesn’t make them happy. Today, Benoit mouthed off a little to the stage manager and there was a scare that we were going to get thrown off the tour.

I caught a little of Life of Agony and Fear Factory. Life of Agony were pretty weak, mediocre, bar rock with a lot of prancing. Not down. Fear Factory was super heavy and sounded like a machine. I listened to half a Dream Theater song and left out of principle. To much to soon. Then it was time.





I have to admit I was never a huge Megadeth fan. I don’t know many songs outside of the Rust in Peace record, but when the lights dimmed and the intro came on I was stoked. By this point the seats were filled and people were ready to party.



The band strolled on stage and the crowd roared. They started with a song I didn’t know. They played a lot of songs I didn’t know but they did play Hangar 18, Peace Sells, and Holy War which was good enough for me. They had full on pyro and everything. All the fire couldn’t cover the lack of energy that was happening on stage. There was almost no head banging!! They seemed really out of it. They sounded pretty good, but I wanted way more. I walked all over the arena waiting for the hits. After tan encore of Holy War, sparks showered the stage and the band held hands and took a bow.

















“You were Atlanta! We were Megadeth! See you guys next time!”