Rude Awakening
NOTE: This review is based on an advance listening preview of the album, not on the actual CD.
After almost 20 years of existence, Megadeth finally releases a live album. That's more than reasonable considering that nowadays some bands release a live album after only a studio album or two (baaad). Unsurprisingly, with so much material to cover, the album is a 2-CD set, totalling 24 songs that cover most of the band's career. Fortunately they left out most of their crappiest material (that's subjective of course, but most people will know what I'm referring to. ;))
I found that some songs that I didn't really like on the studio albums, such as "Kill The King" sound much better live, a bit heavier, more raw, there's a more metal attitude in the sound - a bit hard to describe - let's just call it an improvement. I wouldn't say it's a newly found love but at least the live sound makes them tolerable. A few songs have a more live feeling that the others. For example, during "Peace Sells..." we can hear the crowd singing along, and a couple of songs like "She Wolf" have a drum solo on them (some will like that, some won't... Personally I don't care much for drum solos.) Some of the songs are so clean-sounding that they either have overdubs or the crowd was very quiet. :) Since the advance preview I got forced me to listen to only one song at a time, it is difficult to say whether there's much interaction with the fans between the songs - in some cases there's a bit of talk while at other times it seems like they just play the songs one after the other without talking or crowd noises in-between. Hopefully the CD version is a bit more complete flows just like a show - some live albums have cuts between the tracks and I find that annoying on a live album. A good live album should just flow nicely from beginning to end.
The selection of songs is not bad at all. Of course there will be people who will disagree, but that's the case with any live or best-of album. Hey they're not forcing you to buy it if you don't want it. Overall, a pretty good - and long overdue live album from Megadeth
Track listing:
Disc One
01. Dread And The Fugitive Mind
02. Kill The King
03. Wake Up Dead
04. In My Darkest Hour
05. Angry Again
06. She-Wolf
07. Reckoning Day
08. Devil's Island
09. Train Of Consequences
10. A Tout Le Monde
11. Burning Bridges
12. Hangar 18
13. Return To Hangar
14. Hook In Mouth
Disc Two
15. Almost Honest
16. 1000 Times Goodbye
17. Mechanix
18. Tornado Of Souls
19. Ashes In Your Mouth
20. Sweating Bullets
21. Trust
22. Symphony Of Destruction
23. Peace Sells
24. Holy Wars
