Megadeth, Fear Factory, Non-Point at the House of Blues Boston, MA 12/1/13

   Can't comment on Non-Point as I didn't get to see them. Fear Factory were playing Shock which was the second song of their eight song set when I arrived. There was already a sizable crowd so the name must have shifted some tickets. Maybe people wanted to get in from the rain. All these one word songs: Edgecrusher, Damaged, Replica. The band live in one word: boring. I have some of their cds, Archetype is a great album. They just looked like they were going through the motions and the set was very repetitive. Quiet bit followed by screamey bit. Where are the bloody guitar solos. No way could I last ninety minutes in concert with them,

   I have seen Megadeth twice in the last two years and if memory serves it was my seventh show. Fantastic on the Rust In Peace tour and they blew Judas Priest off the stage when they had an hour set supporting them in Ireland just before Endgame came out. Personally I have never seen them put on a bad show so glad to report that they were great again. Billed as the Super Collider tour it was really odd that Kingmaker was the only track featured and surprisingly it was one of the weakest in the set as it's one of the strongest on the cd. I think if you are naming the tour after the new release the least you can do is play a minimum of 2 tracks from it. Why no title track or Built For War or Don't Turn Your Back. When I saw them promoting 13 they had 3 of the tracks in the set.

   Opening with a taped intro of Prince Of Darkness from Risk I thought they were going to actually play the bloody thing and I love that track but the first track proper was Hanger 18. It was a very old school set with few surprises. They did play a fantastic version of Set The World Afire in the middle but it was the usual stuff. I find it a little odd that She-Wolf from Cryptic Writings has become a staple of the set as it's one of the later tracks on Cryptic Writings. Tout Le Monde, Peace Sells, Symphony of Destruction, Wake Up Dead, Trust. You know, all the singles. If this sounds like I'm bashing the band then I'm not as everything was performed with the usual top drawer precision and the crowd loved it. Only one track from the last 16 years of the bands history was a disappointment. Especially when you factor in an 80 minute performance and that includes Holy Wars as the encore, still a great song live. So another great Megadeth night but if Dave is so proud of the recent stuff then hang around on stage for another five minutes or so and let it rip. I won't give out.

Richie.