By Mitchell “Stitch” Stafford | Rapid City Post

There are concerts you walk away from saying, “That was a good show.”

Then there are concerts where you walk away wondering how a band that has been doing this for more than four decades can possibly still sound that good.

Megadeth was the latter.

Saturday night at the Legendary Buffalo Chip, a massive Rally crowd packed into the amphitheater for what could very well have been the final Black Hills performance from one of the most influential metal bands of all time. If this really was goodbye, Megadeth certainly didn’t play like a band quietly heading toward the finish line.

They played like they still had something to prove.

I’ve seen a lot of concerts over the years. I’ve seen younger bands. I’ve seen bands with bigger mainstream hits. I’ve seen artists with enormous productions designed to make a show feel larger than life.

Megadeth didn’t need any of that to impress me Saturday night.

They were simply incredibly tight.

The sound was massive, clean and powerful. The musicianship was ridiculous. And at the center of everything was Dave Mustaine.

At 64 years old, Mustaine absolutely shredded.

Watching him work his way around a guitar was one of those reminders that sometimes the word “legend” gets thrown around a little too easily. In Mustaine’s case, it fits. His playing was fast, precise and seemingly effortless, and there was nothing about Saturday’s performance that suggested we were watching someone who has spent more than four decades playing some of the most demanding music in metal.

You could close your eyes and hear exactly why Megadeth helped define thrash metal.

But keeping your eyes closed would have meant missing the scene around you.

Thousands of people filled the Buffalo Chip amphitheater, hands in the air, horns raised, packed shoulder-to-shoulder underneath the lights of one of the most recognizable stages in the Black Hills. The energy was unreal, and the heavier Megadeth got, the more the crowd seemed to feed off it.

That’s what impressed me most.

This wasn’t simply nostalgia.

Nobody was standing there politely applauding a legendary band because of what they accomplished 30 or 40 years ago. Megadeth sounded like a band capable of walking onto a stage with just about anybody today and holding their own.

Maybe even blowing them off the stage.

That’s saying something for a band whose story stretches all the way back to the early days of thrash metal.

If this truly is the final chapter for Megadeth, Saturday night felt less like a farewell and more like one last reminder of exactly why they mattered in the first place.

Fast. Heavy. Loud. Technical. Unapologetic.

And unbelievably good.

I went into Saturday night knowing I was about to watch one of metal’s most legendary bands.

I walked away even more impressed than I expected to be.

And if that was the last time the Black Hills gets to see Dave Mustaine and Megadeth under those Buffalo Chip lights, they certainly gave us one hell of a way to remember them.