Event:	The Metal Masters Tour
Written by:	Doc G.
Published:	26.08.2008

After months of planning I was finally here, at the beautiful Molson Amphitheater on Toronto's harbor shore. I had never been to a concert in an amphitheater before and I was blown away, by the looks of it, it would be impossible to get a bad seat in the place.

First up was Testament, I knew I was up for a great show when Testament was the warm-up act. Having seen them 3 weeks earlier at Monsters Of Rock I wasn't in for any surprises but at the same time I knew it was going to be a blistering and powerful experience. They came on and did not let me down, playing as much material spanning their entire career as they could with such a short time slot. Unfortunately this is when I realized how much crowd reaction does effect the performance of a band. When I saw them in late July they had a large crowd to feed off of, whereas at this concert they suffered from empty seats because of the whole "lets blow off the opening band and get drunk" tendencies of many concert-goers. Oh well, their loss, they missed some top-notch thrash being performed live. I would've gladly paid 20-30 dollars alone just to see Testament perform as a headliner.





At this point I stapled myself to my seat because of what was coming next. This is what I came for-5 months of planning, $750 plane tickets, and one $75 concert ticket. The banner bearing "Motorizer" was hoisted and my blood started to pump faster, with a sharp eye I saw the one and only Lemmy walk out of a door side-stage, at this point I started acting not totally unlike one of those screaming, crying girls you see in footage of old Beatles concerts. Motorhead, being a band that likes to not beat around the bush did not use any extravagant orchestra build up or light effects to build up an intro, they ran out on to stage and stated "We are Motorhead, we play rock n' roll" before breaking into the loudest most intense moment I can remember. As a die-hard Motorhead fan I enjoyed their set because they seemed to steer away from a lot of hits, besides 'Ace Of Spades' and the closer 'Overkill'. Unfortunately they rocked out a little too hard and there seemed to be a few technical difficulties and Lemmy had to switch basses 2 or 3 times, one time while the song was still going. Luckily Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee didn't stop and were able to play through these bumps. Other than that, the only complaint would be the shortness of the set-I must see them in a headlining slot next time.




After the Motorhead set I decided to quickly run for a few beers and a slice of pizza. While standing in line for my 5th beer (they only let me have 2 at a time!) I felt the ground below me start to shake....only the duo Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi could cause the earth to tremble like that. I ran back just in time to catch the last half of the opening song (which eludes me at this point). The Heaven & Hell performance was flawless, everything was executed almost perfectly, Iommi's legendary riffs, Geezers earth shaking bass lines, and Dio screaming on top. Dio's voice was so spot-on at some points my eyes would shoot open from some of the notes he was able to hit. Then came the excruciatingly long rendition of the track 'Heaven & Hell' it must have gone on for close to 17 minutes. I know this because I caught the first 5-8 minutes then had to go take a piss that was about to explode, wait for a few minutes in line at the urinals, come back to my seat and still manage to catch another 6 minutes or so of the song before they finally stopped beating that dead horse. As good as the song is, it seemed they were stretching it out almost to kill time. Luckily they redeemed themselves by closing with one of my personal favorites 'Neon Knights'.




Now what people came for, metal masters Judas Priest. By this time the theater was packed asses to elbows, the floors shaking from everyone pounding on their seats chanting the bands name. Once again, I'd already saw them a few weeks earlier so my anticipation wasn't as high as some people, but I completely underestimated them. This time around they switched the set list to my surprise cutting out all the Nostradamus material, other than 1 song I believe, which made me happy because the album bored me from the few quick listens I gave it. As much as I hate to say it, Judas Priest beat everyone in the performance department, maybe because of no technical mess-ups, maybe because of the pristine sound quality, or maybe (and most likely) the fact that they played almost all the big time hits they've had, which resulted in an entire sold-out amphitheater chanting along to every chorus, which brings such an extreme sense of power to each audience member.



In retrospect that was the best concert I'd ever been to, such a great combination of bands, everyone brought something different: Testement brought blistering speed, Motorhead brought unparalleled loudness, Heaven & Hell brought earthshaking heaviness, and Judas Priest brought the crowd exciting hits, not a single disappointing performance from anyone.