So I was listening to those two nimrods on the Metal Sucks podcast recently and they were discussing the trend of bands performing an album in its entirety live or doing a throwback set (setlist of classic material). They were talking about how it’s lazy, a cash in and perhaps even a sign that bands are out of ideas or aren’t proud enough of their new material. First off, it’s hard to take anyone seriously who shoots their load while talking about shit bands like Suicide Silence and Gojira but I’ll digress. That aside, it really did make me think hard about this. After thinking about it and even talking it over with my buddy Jaymz, I came to the conclusion that bands playing albums in their entirety is fun, interesting, and awesome for the fans and even more so challenging and fun for the artists.
One of the first instances of this that I can think of on top of my head is Iron Maiden. Back in 2006 when supporting their A Matter of Life and Death album, Iron Maiden opted to perform the album in its entirety from front to back. I remember thinking that this was a really fucking cool idea and let’s say now that this point should shut those dorks at the Metal Sucks podcast up. The band chose to play their, at the time, brand new release. I wouldn’t call that being out of ideas. I wouldn’t call that not being proud of your new material. Hell, the band was so proud of that album (as they should’ve been, it’s an amazing album) that they wanted to give it the full live treatment. I call that more ballsy than cashing in or running out of ideas. Iron Maiden has some serious history behind them and I can only imagine that when you’re a band of their stature, you have to find ways to keep things interesting as opposed to doing just the same old “mix ‘em up” set lists from year to year.
While we’re on the topic of Maiden, let’s talk about the throwback tours. The guys on the podcast were almost kinda making fun of the fact that they did the Somewhere Back In Time and Seventh Son retro tours. I thought these tours were absolute brilliance. I mean first off, when those tours first hit the road, technology just wasn’t where it is today. For the band to want to utilize today’s technology and relive those classic, elaborate tours was something more awesome than I could ever fathom. What about the fans who were too young to even see those now legendary tours. When you talk to classic, old school Maiden fans, those are the two tours that fans always talk about. Giving a whole new generation of fans the opportunity to live those tours and older fans to relive them only better and stronger than ever was a real treat to the fans. How could you find anything remotely wrong with this?
Now back to the concept of covering full albums. I’ve seen this done quite a bit and I’ve seen some do it better than others. When Megadeth hit the road for in 2010 for the 25th Anniversary of Rust In Peace, they announced that they would be performing the album in its entirety. As a huge fan of that album, I was super pumped about this because not only is it my favorite Megadeth album, this is probably Megadeth’s masterpiece and in my opinion the only album that comes close to, if not actually, topping Metallica’s Master of Puppets. This is not an easy album to pull off and I can only imagine how challenging it was for them to pull this off. Pull it off they did and they did so masterfully to the joy of any and everyone who saw it. While this was a great experience, Megadeth’s choice to follow that up by covering Countdown to Extinction actually left little to be desired as I felt this was a really weak album. I hear now that Megadeth is planning on covering Youthenasia which I think could actually be pretty cool. That album was plagued with horrible production so maybe by revisiting this in a live setting will give it some needed closure. See what’s happening here? There’s more to it than meets the eye.
When Slayer performed Seasons in the Abyss in its entirety as part of the Clash of the Titans anniversary tour I felt like it didn’t really work well. That move just felt too contrived and I didn’t feel that it was all that great of an experience. Looking back on it now, I have to wonder if maybe this move was jumping on the bandwagon of sorts to try and cap off what Megadeth had done so successfully earlier that year. On the other hand, when Anthrax performed Among the Living at this year’s Metal Alliance tour, they pulled it off flawlessly but also did something cool. They played side 1 of the album and then broke it up with a few songs such as “In the End” and “TNT” before playing side 2 of the album and closing out with another 2 songs in the encore. At first I was kind of against this thinking that it was a weak choice since most of these songs get played out as it is but it was really fun hearing them in sequential order and I walked away feeling like it was a really great experience. Personally, I’d love to see them really challenge themselves and perform Persistence of Time in its entirety.
In the end I feel like performing an album in its entirety can be a really cool experience as can revisiting a previous tour or even tour set list. When these bands have been touring and playing for as long as they have, I can only imagine that they long for the challenge or change that comes with performing an entire album. I actually would love to see some of these bands hit the road and in true Grateful Dead/Phish style do a different set list every night giving fans a different show and a different experience every night. Either way, I think it’s a cool thing that these bands are doing this and giving their fans a truly unique experience that they may not ever get another chance to see. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it Metal Sucks dudes.
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