Is San Antonio still the heavy metal capital of the world, a moniker frequently invoked in the 1980s?
On Tuesday night, it sure felt like it was.
That’s because a stacked lineup of metal legends graced the stage of the Alamo City’s biggest venue, drawing a near-capacity crowd of devotees.
Iron Maiden, Megadeth and Anthrax — each headliners in their own right — shared the bill for the historic show celebrating Iron Maiden’s 50-year anniversary as the grande finale of its Run for Your Lives World Tour.
Anthrax opened the evening with a short set of just five songs, which served as a brief rundown of the veteran thrash group’s best-known tracks, from “Caught in a Mosh” to “Indians.”
Megadeth followed, though the mix at the beginning of the set didn’t do any favors to the strained vocals of singer-guitarist-bandleader Dave Mustaine.
Still a guitar virtuoso, Mustaine won over the crowd when, during “Sweating Bullets,” he performed soaring arpeggios on his Flying V in front of a stack of speaker cabinets.
Other classic tracks that made the nine-song set included “Symphony of Destruction,” “Take No Prisoners” and “Peace Sells.”
Megadeth also performed “Tipping Point,” the lead single from its latest album, released in January of this year, which Mustaine thanked the crowd for making No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
For “Tipping Point” and “Tornado of Souls” Mustaine switched from his V to an Alien Tech Green Les Paul, another signature guitar in the longtime collaboration between the iconic Gibson guitar brand and the longtime thrash metal figure.
“There were rumors that we’re retiring after this tour, and the rumors are true,” Mustaine said between songs. “There’s something wrong with my hands. So we’re going to play our asses off and hopefully we won’t be gone too long.”
Despite the trouble with his hands, Mustaine traded solos full of hammer-ons, flashy shreds and palm muting with Finnish lead guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari.
“Holy shit, San Antonio you guys are metal through and through,” Mäntysaari said.
In the era of “blue dot fever” — the industry nickname for the rash of empty stadiums booked by musical acts — filling the Alamodome was no small feat.
To mark the final show on what could be Megadeth’s final tour, Mustaine closed with the familiar sign-off — maybe for the last time:
“You know how it goes — you’ve been great, we’ve been Megadeth. Goodnight.”
Then, it was time for Iron Maiden. As the first smoke-and-mirrors flourish in a theatrical set, a banner featuring the band’s cadaverous mascot Eddie appeared to drop and reveal the band as it ripped into “Murders in the Rue Morgue” from the 1981 album Killers.
Far from the only literary reference of the night, the song named after Edgar Allan Poe’s short story was delivered in front of a Paris backdrop.
Another literary moment came during the highlight of the set, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” from 1984’s Powerslave, when the band lulled the crowd into a trance-like state.
In the epic-length song, named for a work by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the guitars placidly idled, drawing out the interlude and allowing the midsection to sink to the ocean floor while a ship creaked and groaned on the screen behind them.
As Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson glided across the stage, the long sleeves of his robes causing the rising smoke to spiral around him, the effect was nearly psychedelic. Valleys such as these made the peaks in the band’s dynamic set even more ecstatic for the fist-pumping crowd.
Maiden ripped through a bevy of greatest hits, with an emphasis on its first two albums — a rarity for the Dickinson-fronted lineup since the group’s original vocalist, the late Paul Di’Anno, sang on those tracks.
Songs from the band’s self-titled debut album included “Phantom of the Opera” and — naturally — “Iron Maiden,” the latter of which always features in its sets. Songs from their second album Killers included “Wrathchild” and the eponymous “Killers.” Indeed, the set’s first four songs were drawn from the first two albums.
It was as if Maiden were reminding fans — 50 years into the band’s dynastic reign — “look at how far we’ve come.”
Dickinson echoed that sentiment in banter between songs.
“We have waited 50 years before we got to the Alamodome, ’cause that’s how long this band has been together, which is a ridiculous number,” he told the cheering crowd.
The sheer pageantry and spectacle, delivered with precision every moment of the show, demonstrated how Maiden has been able to entertain through the ages and remain a massive concert draw despite a minimum of radio airplay.
Dickinson’s operatic vibrato was as piercing as ever, his movements fluid and graceful as he bounded across the stage and the guitars synchronized in satisfying harmony.
An onslaught of career-spanning hits included “The Number of the Beast,” “Powerslave,” “2 Minutes to Midnight,” “Run to the Hills,” “The Trooper” and “Hallowed Be Thy Name.”
The encore delivered one of the most visually striking moments of the set for “Fear of the Dark,” during which Dickinson sang against a massive full moon. Clad in a Dickensian top hat and overcoat, he looked over his shoulder, shining a lamp as he navigated the smoky stage, seemingly expecting to encounter Jack the Ripper himself.
This is the level of spectacle that a crowd of 40,000 or more calls for, and he knew it.
“Biggest show we’ve ever done we’ve ever done in Texas. Maybe the biggest show we’ve ever done in all of the fucking USA,” Dickinson said early in the set.
Photos by Jaime Monzon.
