Mayhem Festival 2011

Rockstar Mayhem Fest heats up Dallas

Excessive heat didn’t stop the hard-core metal fans from flocking to Gexa Energy Pavilion in Dallas for the annual Rockstar Mayhem Fest. And with a killer lineup on the main stage and some great bands to beat the heat with before hand it’s no wonder.

The Jagermeister and Revolver stages wet everyone’s appetite as things kicked off with UPON A BURNING BODY on the Jager stage. The stages went back and forth with bands like STRAIGHT LINE STITCH, KINGDOM OF SORROW, SUICIDE SILENCE and MACHINE HEAD building up the anticipation for the main stage. And if that wasn’t enough – METAL MULISHA was there once again with their insane bike stunts.

But it was the main stage that everyone was waiting for. Once again DISTURBED was there to wrap up an amazing day – though it was a bittersweet ending. With the band going on an indefinite hiatus there’s no telling when they’ll be back. But the special tribute to Dallas’s favorite son, Dimebag Darrell – a cover of PANTERA’s “Walk” done by all the bands on the tour – certainly made sure that we wouldn’t forget their last Dallas show for a while.

GODSMACK thrilled got everyone pumped starting off their set with “Cryin’ Like a Bitch” and kept the party going with “Forever Shamed”, “Awake”, “Love Hate Sex Pain” and “I Stand Alone”. TRIVIUM got the main stage started with “In Waves”, “Dusk Dismantled” and “Down From The Sky”.

But MEGADETH was probably the band everyone was there to see. The day before Dave Mustaine injured his arm and couldn’t play the Oklahoma show so the question was – would MEGADETH go on in Dallas? Well despite two different doctors telling Mustaine he should leave the tour and go home MEGADETH did indeed play. And even though the set was shortened to only five songs – “Hangar 18”, “Head Crusher”, “Public Enemy No. 1”, “Symphony of Destruction” and “Peace Sells” – the fans still felt like they got a great show and Mustaine and the rest of MEGADEATH gave their all.

We had an opportunity to sit down and talk to guitarist Chris Broderick before MEGADETH hit the stage to discuss the band’s upcoming album, the Mayhem tour, and – just to be different – gaming:

So how’s Mayhem going?

Chris: Going awesome. First time I’ve been on a touring festival where there have been so many different styles of bands involved. This one is cool because a number of my friends have been on it. And you get to know more and more people on festivals like this. It harkens back to festivals I used to go to.

Sometimes when you have several big names co-headlining things can be a bit tense. How is everyone getting along?

Chris: Very well. Things are running exceptionally smoothly I think. The guys from Disturbed have offered us stage advice and vice versa. It’s been great.

You’re also doing the Big 4 tour with Metallica and some fans have wondered how things are between Megadeth and Metallica…

Chris: For me it’s been nothing but awesome. Not only do they do get up on stage and their thing and do it well and professionally, but they’ve been very personable to us. I’m sure you’ve heard of the big jam we do at the end of the Big 4 shows. [Metallica] are always like ‘hey we have our rehearsal room set up if you want to just come in and we can rehearse this’ and there will be like twenty of us in there rehearsing.

You’ve got a new album coming out. What can you tell us about it?

Chris: Well it’s called TH1RT3EN. It’s got thirteen songs and comes out tentatively on November 1st. For me the coolest thing is it’s almost like taking a tour of a Megadeth timeline. You hear stuff that harkens back to Rust in Peace on up to stuff as new as Endgame and everything in between. And it doesn’t sound like the same song over and over like a lot of albums recently. After the NYC show we’ll be doing almost a full month in South America to kick off the full-fledged tour for TH1RT3EN. We’ll be doing many more after that but I can’t divulge those yet.

Now for something completely different – Megadeth has a very heavy presence in the music games, one of the largest libraries for Rock Band and pretty much anchored Guitar Hero’s Warriors of Rock. Are you gamers?

Chris: I’ll put it this way – I’m a wannabe gamer because… You might have remembered the original Starcraft? When it came out… I loved that game. My friends and I would play for 10 hours and stuff. And I had to uninstall the game and break the disc. And then six months later I thought ‘okay I can play this’ and I bought it again and had to do the same thing. I can’t go back to those games because then I never get any guitar practice in. As much as I want to – and when I saw Starcraft 2 came out – I just can’t. I’d never practice.

Disturbed