The Gigantour: Lacuna Coil, Volbeat and Megadeth rock the house at The Fillmore Auditorium in Denver Colorado

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The Gigantour: Lacuna Coil, Volbeat and Megadeth rock the house at The Fillmore Auditorium in Denver Colorado

Posted on March 7, 2012

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Since the sixties there has been a tradition of European rock bands coming to the states to make it big, so why should that be different now. On Tuesday night at the Fillmore there was supposed to be three different European bands on the bill; Lacuna Coil from Italy, Volbeat from Denmark, and Motorhead out of the U.K. but Motorhead had to cancel because Lemmy lost his voice and that's too bad, I would have loved to have seen Lemmy.

In reality I have never been a big Goth fan. I mean, there have been songs here or there that I liked but the whole look and feel of Goth normally turns me off. Lacuna Coil isn't any different really, but their sound is intriguing to me.

There are two singers, Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro. The first time I heard Cristina sing I was instantly reminded of Alexx Calise from Sound of Cancer and I love Alexx's voice. Lacuna

By Mike Martin

Coil live is as good of a show as I have seen in a long time.

Andrea and Cristina don't just trade off vocals. Instead of trading off vocals Cristina and Andrea sing as if each song is a duet between the two of them and that works well. Any of their songs would probably sound okay if only one of them were singing but singing together, it makes perfect sense. Add in the thunder of the rhythm section and lightning fast guitar work and it makes them well worth seeing. They said that they will be touring back through Denver in April. I wouldn't mind catching them again.

Take one part punk, add a touch of rockabilly and the chunk of heavy metal guitar and you get Volbeat. Other than Megadeth, Volbeat was who I was most interested in seeing. I don't go into shows blind or deaf as it were. That's why I love YouTube. Even if I don't know a band I can usually check them out there. Personally? Volbeat was the best band of the night. Megadeth was great but Volbeat... Wow! How many metal acts have you heard that have the balls to cover Johnny Cash and Dusty Springfield? And Volbeat does those artists justice. It really shows how far the influence of Johnny Cash's influence has spread. Think about that...a country music legend covered by a Danish heavy metal band. God I love Rock N Roll! If I were in a band I would want it to be like Volbeat.

Back in the early eighties heavy metal was splitting up and artists and fans were fighting about who's music was better. Bands like Metallica and Anthrax were just coming into their

own. In those early days Dave Mustain was a member of Metallica and for one reason or another they split ways and until recently have been publicly feuding. While the new Megadeth album might not sell as well as the next Metallica album there is one thing that metal fans might want to know. Unlike his previous band Dave never sold out, his music now is just as good as his music was then. He still rocks hard, he still has attitude and he still cares about his fans.

What kind of an attitude does Mr. Dave have? After one song he was up at the edge of the stage poking someone down in the front with the neck of his guitar and scolding them. Later we found out what that was all about. Dave stopped the show and started chewing out the Security at the front. It seems that, in Dave’s words, they were manhandling the fans that needed over the fence. Now if you have never been to a show like this there are a lot of people that come over that fence and these security guys were "tearing their arms off" and deliberately trying to hurt people. I am six foot, three hundred pounds and the security guy on my side was taller and bigger than me. If he wanted to hurt someone it wouldn't be hard.

Anyway, Dave stopped the show and told the crowd that when the BS stopped he would come back on. When he came back to the stage he had one of the head security guys with him, pointed to the "assholes" that were guilty and got them

removed from the front of the stage. This wasn't an Axl Rose hissy fit and Dave probably got a bigger cheer for that than anything.

So I have never seen Megadeth before but I am told that Dave doesn't have a very powerful voice when he is singing naturally. I can agree to that. I thought that maybe it was just the mix or where we were standing but other people told me it was the same all over the theater. The vocals were just being buried under the instruments... that is until he got to the songs from the Peace Sells album.

One cool moment was when Cristina from Lacuna Coil came back out on stage to sing "À Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)" with Dave. When the song was written Dave said that it was meant to be a duet but he couldn't find a female singer with the voice he wanted. Then he met Cristina.

To close out the show and because it is election time Dave told the almost sold out crowd to make sure that they vote because there life might just be depending on it. He left it at that and didn't let his own politics cloud the message.

Should you go see Dave and the rest of Megadeth? Hell yes! They still shred, and they still sound good.