When Megadeth mastermind Dave Mustaine announced plans early last year for a traveling metal festival, many wondered whether he was really being altruistic in his approach to bringing a whole host of "fringe" metal acts out along with the obvious heavyweights in hopes of reaching a wider audience or was he simply guaranteeing a headlining slot for Megadeth for the 2005 summer trek across North America. In an obvious reaction to the somewhat farcical Ozzfest, the whole idea was to bring the metal "back to the masses" so to speak and provide a wide variety of metal acts, both established and new in a package with a dual stage format that unlike it's Ozzfest counterpart, actually celebrated the guitar and featured many outstanding guitar players. With the intent of this being an annual trek like Ozzfest, Dave and his associates took a hard look at everything that is wrong with Ozzfest and vowed to improve on it's shortcomings from a musical standpoint right down to how the artists involved were treated during the tour.

Being close friends with drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), the subject of both Dream Theater and Megadeth doing something together has always come up and now it seemed like the perfect time to put it motion. The tour was a big success and the decision was made to film a performance at the Bell Center in Montreal for future release on DVD and CD. The resulting 2 DVD and 2 CD set is a great "highlight" reel of the whole show with excellent camera work and great sound. Disc One of the 2 DVD set contains performances by all of the bands on the bill including the nu-metalish Bobaflex (a personal fav of Dave's son), the metalcore/grunge modern metal of Life Of Agony and the ultra heavy yet melodic Dry Kill Logic. For the "industrial" veterans Fear Factory, we get the title tracks from their last two albums, Transgression and Archetype with progressive power metal band Symphony X providing the tracks Inferno (Unleash The Fire) from their Odyssey album and Of Sins And Shadows from their legendary Divine Wings Of Tragedy. For the the crushingly heavy yet melodic and melancholic Nevermore, we get Born from The Godless Endeavor as well as the title track to the Enemies Of Reality album. Dream Theater provides the tracks Panic Attack from Octavarium and the lengthy The Glass Prison from their Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence album. Seeing that Megadeth is the headliner and Megadave in control, we get three tracks with She-Wolf from Cryptic Writings, A Tout Le Monde from Euthanasia and Kick The Chair from their latest The System Has Failed.

Performance-wise, we get some very energetic and fiesty performances by Bobaflex, Life of Agony and Dry Kill Logic as well as a very appreciative response to Symphony X who are no strangers to the Montreal area. Fear Factory's Burton C Bell has the type of rough voice that could cut glass and Nevermore's performance is explosive with Warrel Dane's very unique look and stage presence making me even more anxious to finally get to see this band live! Dream Theater is their usual flawless self with the combination of James LaBrie's vocals and the amazing musical talents of Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci, John Myung and Jordan Rudess reinforcing their standpoint as one of the best bands in the business today. Montreal natives Shawn (drums) and brother Glen (guitar) Drover (Eidolon) get the hero's welcome from their hometown crowd and their enthusiasm and talent has really breathed new life into Megadeth.

As far as guitar performances, we get some of the best shredders in the business with Dream Theater's John Petrucci and Symphony X's Michael Romeo slaying the competition with Megadeth's Glen Drover and Nevermore's Jeff Loomis being no slouch's either. Dave Mustaine does an admiral job but ability-wise, he isn't even in the same league as these guys.

Disc Two of the DVD package provides a behind the scenes look at the usual tour hijinx, practical jokes etc. and provides a pretty comprehensive look at what it was like for the bands on tour. Highlights include Dave Mustaine being "serenaded" by Anthrax in his dressing room and especially the night the tour stopped through Texas when Dream Theater performed Pantera's Cemetary Gates in honor of Dimebag with help from both Russell Allen from Symphony X and Dave Mustaine. I've heard a few bands cover this track but this performance kills them all!

The CD version of this DVD has the same tracks but since Anthrax joined the tour later after Dream Theater had to leave, we get the classics Caught In A Mosh and I Am The Law from the newly reformed original line-up with Joey Belladona, Dan Spitz and Frank Bello. It's too bad that we don't get any footage of Anthrax on the DVD but the Montreal show was filmed was before they joined the tour. Also curiously missing is anything with the Dillinger Escape Plan who were also part of the tour for a short while.

Gigantour II just finished which along with Megadeth included Lamb Of God, Arch Enemy, Opeth, Overkill and Into Eternity among others. Once again, the tour was a big success and even included European dates this time around but Dave Mustaine has hinted that although the tour will be an annual one, Megadeth may not be always involved. With the new album United Abominations coming out soon, you can bet that they will be once again part of the tour next summer especially with a new album to promote and the first one that features the current line-up

Impressive as this Gigantour DVD package is, it could be better with more live footage from all of the bands. Instead, besides Megadeth, we only get two tracks from each band. Although it's like watching highlight footage, it still does give you a great insight to what this tour is all about and makes you want to check out next years's version. That pretty much sums up the marketing strategy for the release of this DVD/CD set.

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