Gigantour 2005 Review

My cousin Zachary and I went to Gigantour 2005 near where we live.

Gigantour was a festival started by Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine for bands with great musicanship would come together for one festival.   

This was the first year of the festival, and would continue in 2006, 2007, 2008, and Dave would revisit it in 2012 and 2013.

It was a lot of bands in one day.

We got there right when the first band Bobaflex was ending.

There were two stages.  About half the bands played on the second stage while the others played on the main stage.

We saw Dry Kill Logic but I don’t remember them.  Sorry guys (I’m typing this in 2023 so 2005 was a long time ago.).

But I do remember the next band:  Symphony X.  They were very good.  I still haven’t heard much of their stuff (I have one album) but they were very good and singer Russell Allen (who also has sung for a band I really like called Adrenaline Mob, was excellent.

Life Of Agony were next.  I thought they were very good, but for whatever reason, most of the crowd did not like them and gave them crap throughout their set.

I’m sorry that happened, but I liked them and I’m glad I saw them.

Those were all the second stage bands.

Nevermore started on the main stage and even though I don’t remember a lot of them, I thought they were very good.

The Dillinger Escape Plan, who I was looking forward to seeing, were not there for some reason.

So, Fear Factory was next.

I’ve been a fan of theirs for many years and they are very good.

They put on a very good show.

Then the co-headliner played:  Dream Theater!!

This band (James LaBrie, John Petrucci, John Myung, Mike Portnoy, and Jordan Rudess) is phenomenal.  Think RUSH but even more progressive and heavy.

This was the 2nd time I had seen them, and they played a great set of songs.

In fact, Megadeth were behind for some reason so I think Dream Theater played a bit longer than were originally allotted, but hey, I was OK with that because again, they’re phenomenal.

But the headliner, Megadeth, finally came on and kicked butt as always.

Founder Dave Mustaine (Vocals/Guitar/Songwriter) had just restarted the band a year before this after not playing for a few years, due to an injury.

He formed a whole new lineup, which included at the time the Drover brothers (Glen on Guitar and Shawn on Drums) and James MacDonough on Bass.

Unfortunately, we had to leave about 40-45 minutes into their set, but they were great.

Dave has had a lot of lineups, but regardless of who is playing for/with him, they’re always great.

Megadeth is one of the founders of Thrash Metal and is one of the best bands, in my opinion.

The albums have mostly been consistently great and even the not so great ones have great songs on them.

Dave is awesome at what he does and I’ll always be a fan.

This was a long but great day.