Various Artists: Gigantour Live

"Gigantour" was the brainchild of Megadeth's Dave Mustaine and the tour would be a welcome competitor to the ever-popular Ozzfest. To many Metal fans Ozzfest has been rapidly losing steam by becoming far too diverse with the range of bands and its over all commercialism. Gigantour would instead become a literal shredfest and 2005 would be the first year that this idea was attempted. Serving as "co-headliners", both Dream Theater and Megadeth would close out the all day affair with lengthy sets that truly made the ticket price more than worth it after all bands were counted up. This two CD set serves as a teaser of the event and the fact that it is a mere teaser is the reasoning behind my minimal rating of the release. For starters I felt the song selection on the release was a little weak, and having seen one of the shows I know exactly what was played and what could have been included on the CD. The songs by Megadeth are no where near the bands most popular numbers while the Anthrax contributions are the songs that you ALWAYS find as their provided live track on releases such as this. The songs by both Fear Factory and Nevermore are great and should provide a little added interest in these two killer groups. At the time of Gigantour, each of them was in support of a recently released new album so this should have worked very well to that advantage. Absent from the release is any music by the Dillinger Escape Plan who were on the show that I saw. Dream Theater did not complete the tour itself and was filled in by Anthrax for the closing dates. It's their inclusion that makes me feel why there is no Dillinger present for the listener. Overall I felt that Dream Theater sounded the best, followed by Nevermore and Megadeth as far as the CD sound and presentation went. Honorable mention definitely is for the standout Symphony X who more people need to listen to if Progressive Metal is their thing. Music that I felt was lacking was the Dry Kill Logic, Life Of Agony and Bobaflex stuff and I wondered what made them be included on a show like this against a better fit or longer set by one of the staple names who were performing. It might have been smarter to have both Megadeth and Dream Theater releasing full live CD's of their sets for the fans and then using the tour CD to reflect the other bands who don't have as much exposure the chance to shine. This would have been perfect since most of those bands played for 25-30 minutes at the show and could have had the whole set delivered.

The CD comes with a booklet where listeners can enjoy some photos and liner notes about the event. A DVD has been released in tandem to this, but I have yet to see it to make any assessment on it. I know it is a double set as well, and I am sure that it contains a lot more than what we find on this release.

Bands Featured
1. Dream Theater
2. Anthrax
3. Life Of Agony
4. Dry Kill Logic
5. Bobaflex
6. Megadeth
7. Fear Factory
8. Nevermore
9. Symphony X

Added: October 13th 2006
Reviewer: Ken Pierce
Score:
Related Link: Gigantour Website
Hits: 2276
Language: english

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