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Megadeth Was The Biggest Draw At Mystic Festival 2024’s Day Two And Perhaps For The Entire Festival

The second day of Mystic Festival 2024 featured the festival’s main attraction band, Thrash Metal’s Big Four legends, Megadeth. There were already more people here than the previous two days and Megadeth wouldn’t take the stage for another eight hours. There was a slight chance for rain later on, but I would bet that even if the forecast called for torrential tsunami rain, that it wouldn’t deter any “Droogie” today.

Mystic Festival Cthulhu Skull

Lousiana’s sludge titans, Crowbar, was the first band on my list today. The sky was little dark when they took the stage but that only added some realistic atmosphere to their New Orleans laden vibe. This was their first show in Poland ever so the crowd was a little fervid to say the least. Kirk Windstein was his usual southern gentleman self, but I think his accent might have been a little too much for the Polish heavy crowd to understand at times. Either way, it was a great start to the day.

Kirk Windstein of Crowbar

The Shits were probably the only true punk band on the Mystic Festival billing. Their songs didn’t consist of your typical punk rock formula, they’re longer and slower, but the punk attitude is front and center. For example, vocalist Callum Howe stole at least two beers from the crowd and then spat those said beers onto them. At one point, he reached into his pants, appeared to pull some hair from a specific area of his groin and then put those hairs into his mouth. HE THEN SWALLOWED THEM. Ehhh…. I guess he wanted to make a statement that punk is more about attitude than song formula? I don’t get why you have to be disgusting to be punk.

The Shits

After The Shits, another British band (this one not so gross) took to the same DNA laden stage. Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs AKA Pigsx7. I saw them open up for the Melvins last summer and loved their show. I became an instant fan right away. Their set at this year’s Mystic Festival was absolute fire. Their energy level was through the roof and was reciprocated tenfold by the crowd throughout their 45-minute-long set. The barefooted Muay Thai gear sporting vocalist, Matthew Baty, is a fucking inferno onstage. In my opinion, his live show energy level is only second to Barney Greenway of Napalm Death.

Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs

At some point during their set, a pair of very used looking tennis shoes ended up on stage. When the band attempted to return them to the now presumed barefooted owner, no one claimed them. Maybe it was a gesture of gratitude by the shoeless fan? Maybe they evaporated by spontaneous combustion? We’ll never know what actually happened. But one thing is for certain…when a band creates a fever pitch anything is possible and that’s exactly what Pigsx7 did that day.

German heavy metal legends Accept’s set started at sunset on the large outdoor Park Stage. I was a little surprised by this since I’ve seen Accept command much larger stages in the past. The crowd didn’t seem to notice the smaller stage at all with fan favorites such as “Restless and Wild,” “Fast as a Shark,” and “Balls to the Wall” being included in their setlist. Accept looked spry and genuinely happy to still be playing the summer metal festival circuit. I think in every photo that I took of lead guitarist Wolf Hoffmann; he’s grinning from ear to ear. I’m pretty sure the same look was planted on every face within the crowd behind me.

Mark Tornillo and Wolf Hoffmann of Accept

I had to make a difficult decision for my next band to see due to another schedule conflict. Do I see grind metal gods Terrorizer? Or, Swedish stoner rock legends, Graveyard? Ultimately, I picked Graveyard just because they don’t tour the United States often. Unfortunately, I ended up regretting that decision afterwards.

As I drew closer towards the smallish outdoor Desert Stage, I could see everyone waiting for Graveyard were squished together like sardines near the stage. I managed to worm my way through that mess to an already crowded photo pit. I’ve seen Graveyard before, but it’s been a while. I can honestly say I was a bit bored during the time I was there. Unless you’re a superfan and you love all their material, you might understand my critique. There wasn’t a whole lot happening on stage neither. I’ll just leave it at this. Graveyard are super talented and play well live but compared to the majority of the bands at the festival, their set was a snoozer for me.

Graveyard

Tonight’s headliner was next and I was one of hundreds already walking towards the Main Stage in the same direction. When I arrived at the media tent, it was already full. There were media types in there that I hadn’t seen all festival long up to this point. Megadeth is serious business in Poland apparently.

They split all of us photographers into two groupings and I ended up in the first group by chance. As we walked towards the front of the stage, they were double checking our press passes. It felt like we were going to see the President of Poland with the amount of attention we were getting. Megadeth opened with the title track off their latest album, “The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!” I’m not a fan of any Megadeth’s material after Rust in Piece, so it was just white noise while I furiously snapped away among the other photographers.

Dave Mustaine of Megadeth

After our allotted pit time, I rested for a bit in the media tent and jotted down a couple of observations. Foremost and the most painful thing I’ve written in a while, it’s very apparent that Dave Mustaine has lost significant power in his voice after recovering from throat cancer. He simply doesn’t have that snarl and range that he had previously. I feel awful writing this since I love early Megadeth and love what Dave Mustaine has contributed and means to the Thrash Metal genre in whole.

My other observation is that this is simply a Megadeth cover band now. I didn’t realize how much the aura of the band had changed after David Ellefson was abruptly removed. I know one thing for sure, the thousands of rabid fans that stayed until the end of their set couldn’t care at all what I thought. Good for them and I’m sincerely happy that they got to see this historic band.

Megadeth

I was exhausted after Megadeth’s set but I still had two more bands to catch. Denver Colorado’s western Death Metal wranglers, Wayfarer, and Poland’s avantgarde Black Metal favorites, Furia. I haven’t seen Wayfarer since they were just another DIY death metal band touring in a van. Welp, I can say that they’re all grown up now. They definitely bring a unique sound and persona to their genre. They have a certain “smokey” sound and the western wear somehow works well with the overall live aura of the band. I would love to see them again in a headlining situation in the future.

Wayfarer

The last band of the night, Furia, is a hugely popular Polish Black Metal band. They are the polar opposite to the Behemoth style of Black Metal that most of the metal universe thinks every Polish Black Metal probably sounds like. Tonight, Furia was recording a video using a drone to film it. Instead of your typical LED stage lighting utilized by 99% of the bands playing Mystic Festival, they were using screen backdrops that were projected over them. I’m sure the crowd loved it, but for photographers, it was pretty much a lost cause.

Furia

I hinted in the previous paragraph that Furia are more artsy than your run of the mill Black Metal band. Their set reminded me of stage plays that you might see in any junior college performance class albeit with Black Metal as the background soundtrack. After I had my fill of this Black Metal arts appreciation class, my wife and I headed back to our room. Only one more day remained for Mystic Festival 2024 and it was going to be even busier than all the days combined.

f you want to see the full photo gallery from Day Two of Mystic Festival, click here!