Last night Gigantour came to Phoenix. Because Dodge Theater only has one stage only 5 bands came to town - Megadeth, Lamb of God, Opeth, Arch Enemy and Overkill.

First the venue. Dodge Theater sucked. The sound system was terrible, but worse than that, half the folks there were seated in the stands. I was lucky to have been able to pre-order my tickets so I was in The Pit - a flat area in front of the stage, but that area was far from full. Its hard to get a good moshpit going when half the crowd is sitting down.

When I picked up my tickets, I noticed a sign up on the doors of the theater stating "No moshing" which everyone seemed to think was pretty funny.

The show kicked off at 5pm. First up was Overkill. I only caught the second half of their set. I'm not into old-school metal - I was into that when I was 15 and it doesn't do anything for me now, so while they played really well I can't say it rocked me. Of course, because everyone was stone cold sober and had just got off work, not much was going on with the crowd and maybe that was part of it.

Next up was Arch Enemy. The crowd had warmed up by this point and for good reason. Arch Enemy totally rocked. The lead singer is Angela Gossow, this crazy German woman who could scream (growl) deeper than most guys, and the band was awesome too. They definitely made a convert out of me. I queued up later in the evening to get my Arch Enemy poster signed by the band, which was cool!

After Arch Enemy came Opeth, one of the two bands I went to see. They played what seemed like one of the shortest sets, but then each of their songs is over 10 minutes long. The 4 songs they played were: Ghost of Perdition (from Ghost Reveries), The Leper Affinity (from Blackwater Park), Windowpane (from Damnation) and Deliverance (from the Deliverance album). It was funny hearing them play Windowpane in the middle of all this heavy stuff, and coming after Arch Enemy, but a lot of the crowd got really into it - you could hear them singing along. Opeth didn't do a meet-and-greet session, which was a little disappointing given that all the other bands did. Also the sound was godawful for Ghost of Perdition - they had Martin Mendez's bass guitar up too high, but the rest of the songs sounded awesome. I'm always disappointed whenever I hear Deliverence performed live - I love the outro of that song but it never seems to work live. Perhaps its because the first time I heard them live their old drummer Martin Lopez was already out of it and he was the one that laid it down on the album. Ah well, still a good set.

Next was Lamb of God - my other favorite band. I was wearing my Lamb of God shirt for the evening, and it paid off. They played the most amazing set - it must have been 10 songs or so, including about half off their new album Sacrament which came out a few weeks ago. Considering how new it was, the crowd was still singing screaming along. And of course, Lamb of God got the moshpit going full force. During their set they set up a "circle pit" where the moshpit goes in a circle really fast. I jumped in and time slowed down - it seemed like I was in there for 10 minutes but can't have been more than a couple - I was getting pushed, nudged, thrown — what a total adrenaline rush. In fact that pretty much sums up the whole of Lamb of God's set. They're just awesome live.

Being a bit of a metal-geek, I queued up to get my ticket signed by the Lamb of God band members. They must have thought it a bit odd that this 40 year old guy was being all geeky, addressed them all by first name and kept saying "you rocked!", but it was the height of the evening for me



Last up was Megadeth - the headline band. Again, I'm not into old school rock, so after one song I headed home. Megadeth were rocking but after going nuts to Lamb of God I was out of juice.

Next time I hope they do this at Mesa Amphitheater - thats a more open space, and appartently the Unholy Alliance tour that came there (again including Lamb of God) was an awesome show by all accounts - the moshpit was turning so fast during Lamb of God that a dust devil started up above the Pit! Work made me miss that show last time but it won't happen again!