Concert Review: Heaven and Hell at PNC Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ on May 19, 2007

Right now is one of the best times ever to be a metal fan, for so many reasons, including most importantly, that the first generation of metal gods are not only still alive, they’re touring. Take Heaven and Hell, where the Black Sabbath lineup that produced two of the genre’s classic albums in the early 1980s is making the rounds in support of a new album. Seeing them on stage as a part of a night of three decades of metal was a phenomenal experience made even better by the sublime style contrast the total package offered the ear.

Machine Head

After seeing Machine Head open up for Lamb of God three months ago and hearing their incredible new album in its entirety, I had high expectations about seeing them live again – higher expectations than I normally entertain for an opening band. Incredibly, Machine Head managed to meet these expectations with ease – they’re just that good – but in the process they underscored the one problem with getting three generations of metal bands on the same stage: not everyone is going to relate to what they see, especially an older crowd whose expectation of metal does not extend to the groove metal Machine Head plays.

Machine Head played a set of four of their top songs delivered at the fist-pumping, crowd-motivating roar that characterizes their sound at its best, enrapturing their die-hard supporters in the crowd and quite possibly enlarging their fan base among those not too shell-shocked by the band’s unexpected intensity. I’m a little disappointed there weren’t more fans who wanted to play along, but if I have any real complaint, it’s that four songs is not nearly enough – ending an evening with a mind-blowing performance of “Davidian” a scant 30 minutes after they began fired me up but left me aching for more. Hopefully the next time this band is in town, they’ll be at the top of the bill with more time to give me the sound I crave.

Megadeth

Looking back on Megadeth’s set, it seems that Dave Mustaine did his best to construct a song list made up entirely of Grade A material: along two of the best tracks (“Sleepwalker” and “Washington is Next”) from the brand-new United Abominations and the excellent “Kick the Chair” from The System has Failed (2004), we were treated to some classic Megadeth from the 1980s and early 1990s: “Peace Sells,” “Tornado of Souls,” “Symphony of Destruction” and a mix of “Holy Wars” and “The Mechanix.” With limited time, Mustaine kept his usually long-winded speeches short and to the point, focusing on the need to make every song, every note strike home. Perhaps the motivation was trying to impress older Sabbath fans who might remember the band from the 1980s, or the necessity of winning over the crowd faced by every opening band, but the end result was still the same: for the hour that Megadeth was on the stage, they owned the stage in the best show I’ve seen them do in the past two years.

Megadeth’s Set List

1. Sleepwalker
2. Take No Prisoners
3. Kick the Chair
4. Wake Up Dead
5. Washington is Next
6. Tornado of Souls
7. Hangar 18
8. Peace Sells
9. Symphony of Destruction
10. Holy Wars/Mechanix medley

Heaven and Hell

There’s almost no way to describe how awestruck I felt when the members of Heaven and Hell first walked on stage, “E5150” blasting through the speakers. I felt like the super fan in Almost Famous who walks around David Bowie’s hotel, nearly catatonic with the realization that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant had just signed his notebook. On stage were guys whose albums had defined some of my first metal experiences, about to rock out. It was a very, very cool moment.

Clustered in the middle of an amazing stage set designed to look like the walls of a castle, the band ripped through sixteen choice selections, highlighting material from Heaven and Hell, The Mob Rules and Dehumanizer, along with two of the three new tracks from Black Sabbath: The Dio Years. The style was pure classic live Sabbath, with drawn out jams on “Die Young” and “The Sign of the Southern Cross” and a twenty-minute, theatrical rendition of “Heaven and Hell” mixed in with up-tempo rockers like “The Mob Rules” and “Neon Knights.” The confluence of fates that brought Iommi and Butler together as the most effective guitar and bass combination in metal continues to this today, with a thick, deep sound that could overpower many twin guitar units, while Dio is still Dio; the spry singer of indeterminate age whose still-outstanding pipes and ability to invoke the archetypes of good and evil that populate his lyrics through his performance make him one of the greats.

What made Heaven and Hell’s already rockin’ set even better was the contrast of the slow, steady thump of the classic Sabbath sound with the thrashy speed high left over from Megadeth’s deeply enjoyable performance, a powerful concoction of two different visions of metal that was just enough of everything to really satisfy. Walking back to my car after the show, my neck aching from the hours of bopping and banging, I knew I had just had a classic heavy metal experience.

Heaven and Hell’s Set List

1. E5150
2. After All (The Dead)
3. The Mob Rules
4. Children of the Sea
5. Lady Evil
6. I
7. The Sign of the Southern Cross
8. Voodoo
9. The Devil Cried
10. Vinny Appice drum solo
11. Computer God
12. Falling Off the Edge of the World
13. Shadow of the Wind
14. Tony Iommi guitar solo/Die Young
15. Heaven and Hell
16. Neon Knights