Metal's roaring lion returned to Saltair last night. And the audience was the prime prey.
Megadeth -- featuring guitarist/lead singer Dave Mustaine, bassist David Ellefson, guitarist Marty Friedman and drummer Jimmy DeGrasso -- pumped out a bucketload of tunes from its 15-year career.Mustaine, with his mane of blonde flowing locks, stepped to the microphone and spewed the opening lines to "Prince of Darkness," from the band's new album "Risk."
The rest of the band's energy assaulted those loonies involved in the mosh pit at the front of the stage.
Ellefson's thundering bass was enhanced and, in turn, enhanced DeGrasso's syncopated rhythms. And Friedman took Mustaine to toll as they dueled the leads in such rockers as "Reckoning Day" and "A Tout Le Monde," from the album "Youthanasia."
"Trust and "Almost Honest" were more newer tunes (as in the-last-three-years new) the band pounced on them.
Mustaine's slouching stance and his snarling vocals drove the audience to slam around, while Friedman's rhythms and lead pierced eardrums in the standing-room-only crowd.
DeGrasso, who replaced Nick Menza two years ago, added new life and blood to the band. He, too, was up on his feet -- albeit standing behind his double-bass drum set -- rousing the crowd along with Ellefson.
Ellefson and Friedman also added some nice background chants to the thrash of "Peace Sells But Who's Buying' " and "Symphony of Destruction."
Another nice touch was the schizoid rants of "Sweating Bullets" and the militant crunch of "Crush 'Em," which features a riff that sounds like Loverboy's "Turn Me Loose."
"Hangar 18" and a remake of the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." were other mosh anthems.
And the big surprise came during the first encore.
Mustaine and the boys emerged, chucked out a couple of chewy power chords and blasted into Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," the song Megadeth covered on the Black Sabbath tribute album, "Nativity In Black."
After all these years, some bands would have faded away.
Sure the audience is different for Megadeth. There were young and old in attendance. But, for the most part, Megadeth can still dip into its thrash-metal archives and cap off the show with some nice melodic metal.
The opening band Billionaire, on the other hand, stunk.
Vocalist/guitarist Rick Beato, bassist Walter Busbee, drummer Dareen Dodd and vocalist Marc Tompkins sounded a bit like Jane's Addiction and Soul Asylum but never found an original sound for itself.
And to make matters worse, Beato looked like an early Alice Cooper, while Tomkins resembled David Pirner.