Dubai gets a good thrashing

Dubai gets a good thrashing

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3 MIN READ

In their brief visit to Dubai, Metallica may well have picked up a slightly misleading impression.

After playing Desert Rock they may well assume a field of young people in black tee-shirts bouncing up and down while making horn signs is a typical sight round these parts.

Still, even if the city is only taking its first steps in rock, Dubai Desert Rock 2006 showed that Dubai has definite head-banging potential. Indeed, the crowd of bikers, twenty-something metallers and self-conscious teens somehow sustained their moshing over a gruelling marathon of rock and metal.

Kicks off

In early afternoon the concert kicked off with Mannikind, precocious representatives of the city's own fledgling rock scene. It was almost midnight when headliners Megadeth left the Dubai Country Club's outdoor stage to fireworks and a recording of Sid Vicious's version of My Way.

Over the day, the bill also mixed genres in a manner that elsewhere might definitely create ructions. As a rule, at metalfests whimsical ska acts are as common as Danish bumper-stickers in Rihad. However, hot on the heels of pioneering metallers Testament came the light relief of Reel Big Fish.

Contrasting styles

Visually, the contrast could hardly be more striking. Testament were hefty, uniformly black-clad and impressively hirsute. As they energetically ploughed through a back-catalogue of surpassing heaviness they grimaced, banged their heads and chased each other round the stage and along the walkway into the audience.

"I'm going to mellow it out a bit for you here!" the bear-like, native-American singer promised at one point. But actually this was no invitation to sit down and crack out the cucumber sandwiches.

In fairness, The Legacy was a tad less uncompromising than Into the Pit. But even in melodic vein these Californian thrash veterans were heavier than the rush-hour traffic on the Garhoud Bridge. The guitarist deserves special mention for solos like a tomcat landing in a pasta pan.

"One thing. Don't forget, Heavy Metal forever!" was the stern warning the vocalist roared at us when they finally left the stage.

Frenetic ska

Next on, though, was a skinny guy in a white suit and a brass section. It is tribute to the good nature of the region's rockers that the same black-clad youths who only minutes before were moshing like maniacs were soon skanking away like Marley to Reel Big Fish's frenetic ska.

Reel Big Fish do not take themselves terribly seriously. Throughout their frenetic and mildly bonkers performance their merchandising guy sat in front of the drum kit just wearing shades and occasionally sipping from a can.

Far, far more earnestness came with 3 Doors Down. They combined radio-friendly ballads with songs that a sound that, on a different bill, would be classed as fairly heavy - although they specialise in that now ubiquitous category of American rock where the lyrics seem to have been written for a female country singer.

"This song's just about being me," was how the singer introduced one bout of bleating introspection. But if you like that sort of thing, they were hard to fault - and even the crowd's hardcore metal contingent seemed to warm to their sincerity.

Still, the meat in this musical BLT was always going to be thrash. But how could Megadeth justify the expectations that had brought metalheads, one group even clutching a Kuwaiti flag, from across the Gulf?

Past present

Ironically, in the raucous climax to the concert Dubai was once again reliving its favourite decade. However, the eighties were not just the era of conspicuous consumption, plus-sized automobiles and general cheesiness. This was also when the deadly new genre of fast, aggressive Thrash Metal spread from San Francisco to the world.

And for an hour of relentless, clinically-executed mayhem it was as if nothing has changed. Neither the ferocity of Megadeth's sonic onslaught or singer Dave Mustaine's capacity to disconcert has been remotely mellowed by the intervening decades.

Megadeth's conception of Metal - an exacting physical discipline as much as a musical form - made even Testament sound like Bryan Adams. Each song came at the same impossibly relentless pace and carried a powerful charge of menace.

"Here's a song about some other friends of mine - these are little, green friends," he said as he launched into Hanger 18. Only the ambiguous thin smile under his mass of curly hair could give any clue to whatever oddness lurked within.

In the aftershow party Mustaine sat alone chewing a chicken kebab as a crowd of awestruck metallers constellated at the bar and peered nervously across.

"I went over but there's a space around him where it's as if you can't breathe," one said.

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