power trip band songs

Power Trip: Top Ten Tracks

Texas thrashers Power Trip have made a huge mark in the metal world in recent years, propelled by their 2017 release Nightmare Logic, a quintessential example of old school thrash but completely modern through its genre bending focus on metal and hardcore punk. As the opening band for the monster line up of Lamb of God and Kreator in the UK in April 2020, we’ve broken down the essential top ten songs list of Power Trip. It’s worth mentioning that this was a very difficult list to put together and if you’re a fan of thrash in any of its forms, go forth and listen to Power Trips entire discography. You won’t regret it.

#10. Divine Apprehension ( Opening Fire: 2008-2014, 2018)

Despite making an explosive mark in the thrash circuit in the past 5 years, Power Trip have been an established band for over a decade, with the collection Opening Fire: 2008 – 2014 showcasing old gems that never fully surfaced onto a LP. Still played live to this day, Divine Apprehension is a juggernaut from the beginning, palm muting its way through condoning religion and its frequent corruption and destructive abilities. The breakdown in itself is enough to encourage flailing around and kicking the nearest object, inanimate or otherwise. It’s a fantastic track layered with socially conscious lyrics from frontman Riley Gale such as “Idealism as an illness and it must be erased, When all humanity is at stake ”, providing further reason as to why Power Trip are making such a bold impact beyond their tight musicianship.

#9 Crossbreaker ( Manifest Decimation, 2013 )

Hailing off 2013’s debut album Manifest Decimation , Crossbreaker opens with a heavy old school bassline and a steady drum beat. Power Trip set themselves apart from other bands in the thrash scene through not relying on a constant double bass assault which can quickly become tedious and totally expected. With Crossbreaker as an example, the result is unique, powerful and still heavy as fuck.

#8. Soul Sacrifice ( Nightmare Logic, 2017)

Its at this point where I’d like to give an honorary mention to Heretics Fork from Manifest Decimation which very nearly claimed this spot. However, Soul Sacrifice managed to surpass it by the tiniest amount. The opener of Power Trip’s second album Nightmare Logic , Soul Sacrifice begins with ominous rumbling tones intersected with static noise before transitioning into one of their most satisfying riffs to date. Its rhythmic, slow and a headbangers dream. With one final low screech from Riley, the instruments kick off into their full rapid potential into one mass of unapologetic aggression. Let’s just say you’re going to have to look up the lyrics for this one.

#7. Conditioned to Death ( Manifest Decimation, 2013)

Returning to Manifest Decimation , Conditioned to Death begins with echoing drum beats that gives a nod to preserving the old school vibe as well as the skill of Power Trips long-time producer Arthur Rizk. There’s a brief trademark slow chugging riff before everything kicks off on a wild course of amphetamines. Soul Sacrifice is practically watered down in comparison as Conditioned to Death offers a multitude of riffs, solos and sheer full on speed before slowing every element down again in a circular fashion to conclude. It’s the perfect blend of varying speeds and hostility

#6. Firing Squad ( Nightmare Logic, 2017)

There’s no introduction to gently ease you into Firing Squad, it’s full on machine gun – esque riffs from the get go, showcasing how to perfectly match the subject matter to a full-on sonic assault. In true Power Trip style there’s a breakdown in the middle to keep things varied and interesting, not to mention utterly fantastic in shifting the lyrical melodies to a different realm of deliberate aggression.

#5. Hornet’s Nest (Single, 2019)

Originally released in 2018 as part of Adult Swim’s Single Series, Hornet’s Nest has been conveniently released as a single on this very day of October the 8 th . Despite not being attached to an established album, Hornet’s Nest has rapidly become a firm fan favourite whilst being a frequent addition of Power Trip’s live setlist. Arguably one of their most thrashiest songs yet, its still Power Trip to the very core with their insistence on crossing over genres, their hardcore roots particularly prevalent in the middle of the track. It’s relentless and completely rejecting being generic in any sense from the very start.

#4. Manifest Decimation ( Manifest Decimation, 2013)

A killer title track and a song that you could easily envision being a part of the 1980s thrash scene, Manifest Decimation is a staple live track for Power Trip. The second solo alone sound like a deep cut from the Ride the Lightning album sessions with a Creeping Death vibe to the rhythm sections. Regardless of subtle comparisons to Metallica, Manifest Decimation is a Power Trip gem through and through, nodding to the godfathers of thrash yet still maintaining their own modern twists and feel with their classic formula of contrasting speeds, melody, guttural screams and well-crafted lyrics:

“ Under the boot of great oppression, we slither and crawl.

On the path for annihilation but in the name of god?

Manifest Decimation, we stumble and fall.

Manifest Decimation, to suppress us all.

Under the boot of great oppression, a dark figure conquers us.

Manifest Decimation, when all hope is crushed.”

#3. Nightmare Logic ( Nightmare Logic, 2017)

Perfectly paired with Manifest Decimation as a kick ass title track, Nightmare Logic is elevated in its attention to detail (this goes for the album as a whole too) and its sense of foreboding atmosphere with its distant screeching guitars and rhythmic palm muting. The drum beats emphasise the overall pulsating beat with the vocals adding the charm of that low guttural tone that Power Trip fans all know and love. It’s a complete onslaught of thrash at its very best that is worthy of a top three spot.

#2.Waiting around to Die ( Nightmare Logic, 2017)

With a warped opening alluding to a ticking clock, Waiting around to Die possesses a fantastic isolated riff that is so damn catchy without losing its quintessential heaviness. The song title could be construed as deceivingly pessimistic yet the lyrics focus on criticising individuals who are wasting their lives away and thus waiting around to die. Waiting around to Die showcases a brilliant chugging pace, hooks and a vocal melody that demands a cathartic release, whether at a Power Trip show or listening to the album in the comfort of your own home. It’s an excellent example of skilled song writing and is guaranteed to conjure up the desire of punching someone in the face.

#1.Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe) ( Nightmare Logic, 2017)

If you’re a Power Trip fan already than this choice for the top spot comes as no surprise. Executioner’s Tax is Power Trip’s hit, inciting individuals to lose their collective shit whenever the very first riff is detectable at live shows. And no wonder – its an example of Power Trip at the very top of their game with tight musicianship and excellently crafted song writing that’s layered with morbid yet humorous lyrics. “ Even a killer has to get paid” will go down as a personal favourite line for its simplicity coupled with a sharp wit that’s difficult to perfect and execute (pun intended). Executioners Tax and Nightmare Logic as a whole are fully responsible for propelling Power Trip up the ranks and its no surprise that they’ve secured a spot touring with metal giants Kreator and Lamb of God.

So, at the very least, go listen to Executioners Tax – It’ll reinstall your faith in the modern thrash scene.

You can find tickets for Power Trip’s tour with Lamb of God and Kreator here.

For more on Power Trip, visit: Website // Facebook // Twitter // Instagram // Youtube

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Power Trip executes music with raw energy. They’ve trimmed the fat on every reference they pull from – whether that’s Hardcore, Metal or Punk – to make music that actually cuts in 2017. Hailing from Dallas, the band have toured the world relentlessly for years. Their musical proficiency, perfect song structure, rich tones, fierce riffs, delivery and collective attitude has seeded them as one of today’s most prolific acts in any astute or heavy genre. Power Trip boldly surprise their broad fan base by performing alongside less obvious artists – closing the gap that in 2017’s social climate desperately needs to be filled. One month you can catch them playing with Title Fight, Merchandise or Big Freedia, the next you can catch them on a long tour with Napalm Death or Anthrax. They’re a powerful storm of aggression, gaining more and more momentum with true, honest spirit.

Nightmare Logic has taken Power Trip’s classic Exodus-meets-Cro-Mags sound to new places. With hooks and tightness rivaling greats like Pantera or Pentagram and production by the esteemed Arthur Rizk, Nightmare Logic punishes fans not only sonically but with pure songwriting skill. The sophomore release and second on Southern Lord Records, raises the bar and pushes Power Trip to new extremes. Since 2013’s Manifest Decimation, the band admits they’ve not only gotten better at their instruments, but have also reinvented their songwriting process into a more nuanced and clever system. The shift shows on this record and does so without losing any of the aggression so essential to the band.

Gale’s lyrics reflect that aggression by honing in on the devaluation of human life by those who’ve gained power through money and politics. By creating a broad dissection of human suffering above reproach from personal agendas, the lyrics attempt to unify and inspire listeners. Coming from the hardcore world, where every band vaguely fights “the man”, wants to live free and break down the walls, Power Trip noticeably stands out. Instead of skirting around the fetishization of fighting back, Nightmare Logic focuses in on real oppression felt by many all over the world, whether that’s fighting addiction and the pharmaceutical industry (Waiting Around to Die) or right-wing religious conservatives (Crucifixation). Taking cues from Discharge and Crass in Margaret Thatcher’s UK, Nightmare Logic delivers poignant social information directly into those homes engulfed in the sour turn of global politics towards right-wing agendas. Touring the world on Nightmare Logic, Power Trip will play to scenes much further outside the bubble of contemporary underground punk music than any other current band, all while pushing the envelope of the modern punk ethos.

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Power Trip Officially Return With Summer Shows: ‘The Time Is Right to Get Back On Stage’

• By Daniel Kreps

Daniel Kreps

The surviving members of Power Trip have revealed their surprise reunion in December — the Dallas thrash group’s first gig together since the death of singer Riley Gale in 2020 — was not a one-off as the band has scheduled three more shows this summer.

Following their unannounced five-song reunion in Austin in December, Power Trip — guitarist Blake Ibanez, guitarist Nick Stewart, bassist Chris Whetzel, and drummer Chris Ulsh, along with Fugitive singer Seth Gilmore, who handled lead vocals at that Austin gig — have booked shows at Pomona, California’s No Values Fest on June 8, Dallas’ the Factory on July 6, and New York’s Knockdown Center on Aug. 24.

See you soon. https://t.co/lWh5Ng0oSb pic.twitter.com/zuvthDfR1r — POWER TRIP (@powertriptx) February 20, 2024

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Power Trip continued, “We’ll never have the words to convey our appreciation of the enduring support we’ve received over the years, and we feel as though the time is right to get back on stage for all of you who’ve been there throughout our existence as a band.”

Following Gale’s August 2020 death from an accidental overdose from the toxic effects of fentanyl, Power Trip went on hiatus and moved on to other projects, but the surviving members did not rule out a reunion someday. “We do want to continue to play music together; we just are not sure what that looks like at this time,” Ibanez  told the  Los Angeles Times in March 2021, shortly after the group was nominated for a Best Metal Performance Grammy Award for their live rendition of “Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe).”

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Music Features

Power trip returns, reshaped by loss, the thrash metal band finds catharsis in a familiar place.

Evan Minsker

Four years after the death of frontman Riley Gale, Power Trip surprised fans onstage at Mohawk in Austin, featuring a new vocalist. Samantha Tellez/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Four years after the death of frontman Riley Gale, Power Trip surprised fans onstage at Mohawk in Austin, featuring a new vocalist.

The open-air venue Mohawk in Austin, Texas, has an upper deck perch that's perfect for observing the churning cyclone of bodies below. Emotions were high on Dec. 1, 2023: Texas band Fugitive was the headliner, but many in the crowd had a hunch about the promised "special guests." When Power Trip , the crossover thrash metal giants who had been missing in action for four years, finally appeared, there were tears in the pit. Bodies flew from the stage into the torrent of thrashing heads screaming every word of "Executioner's Tax (Swing of the Axe)" in blunt, ecstatic unison. It was a moment of catharsis for a scene that had been in mourning since the shocking 2020 death of the band's lead singer, Riley Gale .

Blake Ibanez, guitarist in both Fugitive and Power Trip, called the decision to bring the band back that night "testing the waters" to see how fans would react. "It was a safe way to do it, because on one hand it's, like, 'Hey, it's just a Fugitive show, and I'm having the guys come up here. We're gonna just celebrate and play the songs,' " he tells NPR on a video call. "I mean, at some point it's gotta happen." This year, Power Trip will play full-length sets at the Pomona, Calif., festival No Values (June 8), in its hometown of Dallas (July 6) and in New York City (Aug. 24).

It's an opportunity for a passionate fan base of hardcore kids and metalheads to celebrate — people who loved the band's boundless energy, how it could wield scream-along pop hooks using the heaviest, scuzziest, most abrasive metal soundscapes. Some at the Mohawk show spoke of it with near-religious reverence. "This is so cliché, but it was the most electric feeling I've felt at a show," said Erica Hotchkiss, a fan from Irving, Texas. She and some friends drove three hours south to Austin to catch the show based on a clue in the flyer: an illustration of an executioner, which is a key piece of iconography from arguably Power Trip's most beloved song . "We didn't know if they were just going to come out and make an announcement. But we knew that we had to be there."

It was fans like this who compelled Power Trip to come back. "They can see we're in it for the right reasons," Ibanez says. "We didn't make any money off Power Trip at that show. We didn't do it for that. We did it for ourselves because we miss playing these songs together, and we did it to celebrate Riley." The full shape of what's next isn't yet defined beyond this handful of shows. Here's what's certain: The band wants to perform the music they put out, across two albums and scattered singles. Gale's family wants them to play. It took years for everyone to get to this point.

The loss of a lyricist and a leader

"It was one of the worst things that happened to me in my life, because Riley was my best friend," says Brandon Gale, Riley's father.

Riley Gale died in his sleep on Aug. 24, 2020, from the toxic effects of fentanyl. He was 34. The band lost its voice and lyricist; the scene lost a leader. Power Trip built its reputation on gleefully chaotic live shows, and those shows wouldn't have been half as powerful without the longhaired figure in a camo hat barking out front about systemic injustice, corporate greed and oppression. Every word was shouted with an authoritative grizzle; he could galvanize a crowd with a single-syllable grunt. "He had very strong messages in there," Brandon Gale emphasizes. "It wasn't just yelling for the sake of yelling on stage. He wanted people to genuinely get engaged in the message."

"Riley, dude, he was just such a force on stage," says Gray Muncy, a photographer from the Dallas-Fort Worth area who estimates he captured over 40 of the band's shows (and somehow never broke a camera in the process). "I've shot so many photos of him, and it was so easy because of his emotion." Whenever Muncy gets a compliment on photos of Power Trip, he credits the chemistry between the band and its audience. "If you go to a really good hardcore show, the crowd is in the band," he said. "There's that symbiotic relationship where they feed off of each other."

Riley Gale, pictured here in 2018 at the Saturn in Birmingham, Ala., could galvanize a crowd with a single-syllable grunt. David A. Smith/Getty Images hide caption

Riley Gale, pictured here in 2018 at the Saturn in Birmingham, Ala., could galvanize a crowd with a single-syllable grunt.

In the wake of his passing, the Gales set up a 501(c)(3) charity called the Riley Gale Foundation in an effort to honor Riley's strong convictions. Brandon Gale says his son was the small guy in school who would stand up to bullies, and that he volunteered in soup kitchens as a young man. The foundation aims to be a continuation of his passions in life: It puts funds toward helping unhoused LGBTQ+ youth in the Dallas area (Riley was a committed supporter of the queer-focused outreach group Dallas Hope Charities), has named a library in his honor (he was a voracious reader) and also donates to a local dog rescue (loved animals).

Gale's friends affirm that on and off the stage, he led with empathy: He was the guy who let touring bands crash at his place, who made himself available to anyone who needed an ear. "With the fans, he wanted to be someone anybody could reach out to and talk to if they were dealing with something in their lives," says Power Trip guitarist Nick Stewart. "He was just such a comforting person when people didn't know where they stood. He felt like he could try to help everybody."

Before Power Trip began, Ibanez described Riley's previous band Balls Out as "the kings of Dallas hardcore." Gale was without a band when Ibanez, Stewart and bassist Chris Whetzel's band Reality Check was beginning to fizzle in the late 2000s. Mutual friends suggested they talk, and soon enough, Gale and Ibanez — then 21 and 16 — started bonding over hardcore bands like Cro-Mags, Breakdown and Leeway over messages on MySpace.

Power Trip's sound was a meeting point between hardcore punk and thrash metal, and in the process of creating it, the band connected with a wide swath of listeners interested in the greater sphere of heavy music. "We know we play a very subversive style of music, but we also want this to be for everyone," says drummer Chris Ulsh. "We want people to feel comfortable at our shows and have a good time. We're the type of band that can play with anyone regardless of if we're playing with indie bands, death metal bands, punk bands, whatever."

Steadily, a community of passionate fans formed around the band. Hotchkiss, who has an executioner tattoo with the caption "swing of the axe," saw the band around 10 times before attending the surprise show in Austin last year. "I'm married to my husband because we ran into each other at a Power Trip show," she said. Hotchkiss was a fan from the Dallas hardcore scene; her husband Kris was a metalhead. Previously acquaintances, they bonded instantly after she saw him in the pit: "Power Trip was our common ground." The date of that show appears on a decorative pillow in their home.

Who could step into Riley's role?

In the months after Gale passed, Ulsh said the band didn't consider or discuss the prospect of keeping the band going "for a really long time." It was 2020, and playing shows wasn't an option due to COVID-19, anyway. But as live music started to return, the band's members were talking on one of their regular FaceTime calls, and Ulsh broached the subject. "I'd never really mentioned it to anyone else and it kind of seemed like no one else had talked about it, but everyone was just like, yeah, we should," he says. "I like being a band with these guys, and we all seemed to feel the same way."

Some of the band's members had been busy with different projects, Ibanez with Fugitive and Ulsh with Quarantine. Still, the idea of these four starting a different band together didn't feel right — like it wouldn't be honest or respectful to their past together. "We put so much into this band and it just kind of seemed like it would be compounding tragedies: losing a close friend and then losing this thing that we dedicated our adult lives to," Ulsh says.

Power Trip in 2024 now includes vocalist Seth Gilmore (far left). He plans to give it his all "to honor the spirit of Riley's memory." Adam Cedillo/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Power Trip in 2024 now includes vocalist Seth Gilmore (far left). He plans to give it his all "to honor the spirit of Riley's memory."

"If anybody's going to step into this role and sing these songs, it'd be someone from our world who has history with us and gets this whole thing and knew Riley," Ibanez says. "The pool for that? I mean, I think it's [not] overstating it to say it's incredibly small. Beyond that, who's actually willing and is capable of doing it?"

Seth Gilmore was the guy, a friend embedded in the Texas hardcore scene for as long as Power Trip existed. As the frontman of Fugitive, he had established chemistry with Ibanez. Initially, he was hesitant. "A year or so after Riley passed, before we even started Fugitive, I may have thrown it his way: 'Hey, would you want to mess around with some of these songs I've been working on, that were actually songs for the Power Trip album that never happened?' " Ibanez recalls. The implication that he'd be standing in for Gale gave him pause, so he dropped it until well after Fugitive had earned the respect of fans. "By the time I brought it up to him again in the past year, at that point he didn't really think twice about it." Gilmore confirmed Ibanez's assessment in a statement, saying he plans to give it his all "to honor the spirit of Riley's memory."

So it was Gilmore barking "Manifest Decimation" and "Hornet's Nest" to the crowd at Mohawk. Gale could never be replaced, but for fans who had just watched a Fugitive set, the consensus was that it was an organic fit. "I personally don't think there's any other person better to fit the bill than Seth," Hotchkiss said. Of course, fans had a hunch he would be the guy. "Even before everybody knew Power Trip was playing that night in Austin, I said, 'Seth, your life's about to change,' and he just smiled," Muncy says.

There was some fallout from that night, too. Brandon Gale issued a statement saying the family was not told in advance about the show and was caught by surprise. He later issued an apology, saying that while he wishes he'd gotten a heads-up from the band, he still regrets the statement. "While it came as a surprise, it was a very visceral reaction and I would certainly undo it," he says.

That one show wasn't the extent of the issues between the band and Brandon Gale, as the statements brought to light a civil lawsuit he'd filed on behalf of Riley's estate on Feb. 10, 2021, against the members of Power Trip. The suit alleged breach of fiduciary duty and claimed the band owed the Gale estate money from merchandise sales, tour revenue and royalties. On Dec. 8, one week after the surprise set in Austin, the case was settled.

"There was an unfortunate need for the litigation," Brandon Gale says. "It was critically important that the foundation received all of the money that Riley was entitled to because that's the primary source, with contributions, of how we build and grow the foundation. It's settled, and what I want to do is focus on the good stuff going forward."

"We probably don't want to comment on that," Ulsh says of the lawsuit. "That was a very difficult and s****y thing that happened that we had to go through. It's behind us now, and we just want to leave it behind us." Ibanez adds: "When something really tragic happens like that, there's a lot of emotions involved. It happens this way with a lot of similar situations, when you have the family of someone who wasn't really involved and is trying to figure everything out and get things together. Yeah, it's behind us. And as everything stands, everything's all right."

Asked about the future of the band, Brandon Gale offered his blessing: "If Power Trip goes out and they start touring again, people are going to buy their music and Riley's going to get his royalties and the foundation's going to grow. So how could we not be in favor of that?"

'We're just taking it one step at a time'

Power Trip is currently resuming rehearsals in Dallas. Ulsh says he's excited to get back to playing for wild crowds instead of repeating the same songs over and over to each other in a practice space. Ibanez is excited to feel the rush again, too: "We were gone from it for so long, and then you get up there and it's like, wow, I forgot we're part of something really special."

Though Ibanez let it slip that Power Trip had been working on a new album before Gale's death, he refused to engage further on the possibility of new music in the future. "The main focus is to play the catalog — that's what people want to hear. I don't think we're really particularly interested in moving on from where we were," Ibanez says. "We really want to honor Riley and want to honor what we've done before just moving forward. That's the main thing, to treat the whole situation with as much respect as possible. ... We're just taking it one step at a time."

While Ulsh, Ibanez and Whetzel all stayed busy in recent years with other bands, Nick Stewart hadn't been back on a stage since Power Trip's last show with Gale. "I'm a civilian — I just book shows and don't have a side project right now. So it's even more reason why I'm excited to do this," Stewart says. "It's been our lives since I graduated high school, so to be able to do it again is really special. I love performing, man; I love getting up there and giving everything I got." As he spoke, his dog began barking in the background. "Sorry, my dog's going crazy. But yeah, excited as my dog right now to get up there and play some shows."

That December night in Austin, Muncy looked around in the pit and saw how many people around him were crying. "When I first thought about them playing, I was, like, 'My friends need this; Texas needs this show, our scene needs this,' " he says. "But then once it happened, I was like, 'You know what? My friends in the band needed that show more than anybody.' Those four dudes, they sacrificed a lot to get where they are. They can't just quit."

The 10 best moments from the Power Trip festival

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“The question I got for you right now: Do you want heavy?”

That was James Hetfield about halfway through Metallica’s closing set Sunday night at this past weekend’s Power Trip festival — and indeed heavy was what the tens of thousands of fans before him got in the form of a bludgeoning rendition of “Sad But True” that seemed to shake the desert ground.

Held at the Empire Polo Club (where its promoter, Goldenvoice, also puts on the annual Coachella and Stagecoach fests), Power Trip brought together Metallica, AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Tool for a kind of harder-and-faster follow-up to 2016’s Desert Trip mega-concert featuring the legends of 1960s rock.

Here are 10 of the show’s most memorable moments:

1. Metallica was in Southern California just weeks ago for a pair of sold-out dates on its M72 tour, whose ring-shaped stage the band adapted to a semicircle at Power Trip. (As a result, Lars Ulrich utilized only two drum kits as opposed to the four he played at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium.) But the presence of so many peers and predecessors — “I got to see my heroes this weekend,” Hetfield told the crowd — appeared to draw out the group’s competitive streak: Its 1-2-3 opening punch of “Whiplash” into “Creeping Death” into “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was as tight and furious as Metallica has sounded in ages.

2. Hetfield tapped into a richly emotional vein in the haunting “Fade to Black,” which he described as a song about suicide — “something we’re not supposed to talk about,” he noted — and which he used as an opportunity to address anyone in the audience who might’ve needed it. “If you’re feeling the darkness, talk to your friends, please,” he said. “Please do it. We need you here.”

3. Among the heroes Hetfield beheld was Judas Priest, which capped its set on Saturday with an unannounced appearance by longtime guitarist Glenn Tipton, who stopped touring with the hugely influential British group in 2018 due to Parkinson’s disease. Here he rejoined his bandmates for “Metal Gods,” “Breaking the Law” and “Living After Midnight.”

4. Always a snazzy dresser, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford was one of two gentlemen at Power Trip, along with Guns N’ Roses’ Axl Rose, to don a sparkly silver jacket that happily played up the theatrical side of heavy metal and hard rock. (Halford took his off after a few minutes to reveal an equally fetching sequined leather number.) Yet as style icons both men were actually outdone by AC/DC’s Angus Young, who came onstage in his signature schoolboy uniform but eventually lost the jacket and tie and unbuttoned his shirt to let it billow in the desert wind.

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AC/DC’s two-hour Power Trip set stacked classic after classic, each delivered at deafening volume and with precisely the right blend of rawness and finesse.

Oct. 8, 2023

5. AC/DC’s performance was its first since 2016, when singer Brian Johnson was forced off the road as a result of hearing loss and was replaced for a stretch of gigs by GNR’s Rose. With Johnson back in the fold — and Young’s nephew Stevie filling in for founding riffmeister Malcolm Young, who died in 2017 — the band’s whole set here was a rowdy delight. But it peaked with a merry run through “Highway to Hell” that made you wonder whether there’s any bad trip AC/DC couldn’t rebrand as a good time.

6. Playing mostly in shadows, Tool did the opposite in a nightmarish set of dense prog-metal that likely terrified anyone who’d taken the wrong drugs before showtime.

7. By far the festival’s chattiest performer, Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson introduced “Death of the Celts” with an impromptu history lesson on how “human beings have a streak of being the biggest f—ing a—holes on the planet.”

At Power Trip, Guns N’ Roses ditches spectacle as it polishes the messy past

Guns N’ Roses headlined the first night of this weekend’s Power Trip hard rock festival with a show that lacked spectacle and mayhem.

Oct. 7, 2023

8. Guns N’ Roses played the longest set of the weekend, finishing at 1 a.m. early Saturday morning, yet somehow couldn’t find time to do “Don’t Cry,” its second-best power ballad after “November Rain,” which Rose did sing while seated on a piano bench designed to look like a motorcycle. What made the omission even crazier (in a fun way) was that GNR dedicated four minutes or so to a very sincere cover of “Wichita Lineman,” Jimmy Webb’s classic country-pop tune that was a hit for Glen Campbell in the late ’60s.

9. Rose also reached back to the classic-rock past for the band’s hit renditions of songs by two Desert Tripsters: Wings’ “Live and Let Die,” which he dedicated to Paul McCartney on the occasion of the song’s turning 50, and Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which had a kind of sanctified reggae vibe.

10. Heavy metal and hard rock thrive on instrumental prowess, as Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Rob Trujillo demonstrated in a performance of a song they said they’d composed earlier Sunday. (Somewhat sheepishly, Trujillo reported that the song was titled “Funk in the Desert.”) Yet the festival’s most endearing moment arrived maybe 20 minutes later when Hammett flubbed the intricate fingerpicked intro of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters.” “Sorry, guys,” he told the crowd with a laugh before starting again. “You know, it’s really hot in this f—ing desert.”

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Mikael Wood is pop music critic for the Los Angeles Times.

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