Megadeth

Continuing my somewhat irregular series of introducing my favourite bands, here I am writing about Megadeth. I never meant this as a series when I wrote about Iced Earth, but after I wrote the one about Judas Priest I had a sneaking suspicion this might develop into a series. So here it is.

Since I've started each post in this series with a video, I might as well do it now and make it a habit. Here is a video from Megadeth's Helsinki concert in February, which I attended.



Megadeth is a very special band for me for a multitude of reasons. The primary reason is that they are probably the only band which I loved completely at first hearing. I got Megadeth's Greatest Hits: Back to the Start as a birthday present a year ago in April. I plugged it in straight away, quite curious since I had never listened to Megadeth before. Fortunately, I played it in the big living room stereos instead of my computer's speakers, since what came out first was Holy Wars... The Punishment due for you. That opening riff was so amazing that it spread a crazy grin across my face, and I probably started headbanging straight away (though I'm not sure). It was that opening riff of Holy Wars that literally made me a Megadeth fan in ten seconds, and the song is still my favourite from the band.

After this initial phase of Megadeth love, when I listened to the album time and time again, Megadeth fell into oblivion for some time. They only remained a casual band for me, and I attribute this partly due to the poor song selection of the greatest hits album. The average quality of the songs wasn't so great. I did want to get some more Megadeth stuff but never really did. During the subsequent summer and fall they got considerably little play time on my iPod. I never stopped liking them, but my initial love had died out. Megadeth was threatening to go the Black Sabbath route for me; kept, liked, but little listened.

Fortunately, fate intervened as I got Megadeth's compilation box set, Warchest, as a Christmas present, more surprisingly from my uncle who is as far from a metalhead as you can realistically get. This boxed set gave me access to a great amount of Megadeth songs and again caused me to listen to the band a lot. However, even then Megadeth could have drifted into obscurity, as usually I have little patience for greatest hits compilations; I like listening to the original albums. However, apparently I was destined to be a Megadeth fan, as a third turn of events happened: Megadeth was starting a new tour, including a gig in Finland. At first, I was hesitant; I was not yet a huge fan of Megadeth, and I wondered whether it was worth the money. Then the field tickets (and good seating tickets) were all sold out, and because of this, I resolved to not go.
However, I think some cancellations happened, because I later found some good seats. I was still hesitant, but since I was having a hard time in school then, I thought that a concert would definitely cheer me up and help with stress. So I bought a ticket for my second-ever concert, with full awareness that I would be going alone and would not even be in the field.

I regret not buying that ticket earlier, since then I could have been in the field and had even a better time. However, the concert was still amazing, and it was that which sealed my love for Megadeth. It was almost like fate; I got all my Megadeth records as presents, and a perfectly-timed gig consolidated this. In a different time and a different place, I might not have become a Megadeth fan, but now they are in my absolute top 5 bands. And that's not an easy place for a band to get to.