QUESTION OF THE WEEK: IS THE BIG FOUR MINI-TOUR AWESOME, OR JUST SAD?

June 25th, 2010 at 4:30pm
MetalSucks

590

Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

First of all, we’d like to congratulate MetalSucks Maniac Cysquatch for winning our “Design a Graphic for Question of the Week” contest. There were a lot of entries that we thought were really cool, and we wanna thank everyone for all their hard work. Alas, there can be only one winner, and Cysquatch’s simple, elegant, Tool-like design was ultimately the one that stole our hearts. Cysquatch gets a free MetalSucks t-shirt in the size and style of his choice, and a weekly credit for his work. Congrats, Cysquatch!

Now, onto the business at hand: This week’s QOTW. Here it is:

Is this Big Four mini-tour awesome, or just sad? Please give special attention to the “Am I Evil” jam.

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

I think it’s neither awesome or sad. It’s cool for the fans who have been following all four bands since back in the day, but it’s obvious that the photo ops / guest performances etc are all pre-organized affairs forced upon them by the festival organizers. Not that the guys went into those ops kicking and screaming, as I’m sure they all realize it benefits them all… just that nothing like that would ever have happened organically. I’m kind of tired of hearing about Big Four stuff. OK, great, they’re all playing on the same stage. It would’ve been a lot cooler if it happened in 1990.

-Vince Neilstein

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, it’s pretty clearly a cynical cash grab. And as much as I was hoping they’d all get up and jam, the jam that they all got up and did was pretty lame, like watching your dad’s old garage band have a “reunion.” (It’s telling that 3/4ths of Slayer didn’t particpate — with no “Crush ‘Em,” Load, or Dan Nelson fiasco to their credit, they are inarguably the member of the Big Four that have managed to stay the most consistently cool for the longest period of time.) But all of that being said — of course I’m hoping for a U.S. tour, and of course I’d be excited to go. Fuck, I’ll do you one better: if they bring out Exodus and Testament as openers, this will pretty much be the most fun tour of the year, even if everyone is over-the-hill. So, to hell with it, I guess: sentimentality wins out over common sense, and I cast my vote for “awesome.”

-Axl Rosenberg

While I personally can’t get muster much excitement over it, I absolutely see the appeal of the Big Four mini-tour and contend that it is awesome — to a degree. That the groups have limited this to such a finite number of dates due to their sensitive man-egos is inexcusable. You’d think they’d be inclined to give in to their collective desire for a big payday that would make hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of metal fans make white wormies in their pantaloons. Instead, they play a handful of gigs in Eastern Europe and show one of the performances in fucking movie theaters, which is fucking stupid. What a bunch of miserable primadonnas. Take your Diamond Head cover and shove it.

-Gary Suarez

Alright, maybe it’s my reverence for classic rock and rock history in general, but I think this is pretty cool. While it’s pretty hard to argue that these bands are still at the top of their game, they’re not THAT far off of it: Death Magnetic is mostly not terrible, Megadeth has been experiencing quite a late-career resurgence, Slayer are still fucking Slayer, and Anthrax… um, well, anyway, while this isn’t at an optimal point in these bands’ careers to perform together, I don’t think they’re far gone enough that this isn’t completely a cynical way to cash in (well, in intent, it may be), but, in fact, still an awesome show with four great bands that would be well worth checking out. I can see why people would think it’s lame, but the fact is, for me, at least, there’s still something of merit and value there. Whether or not they bro down together after the show is over is inconsequential: despite being arguably (alright, fairly easily argued to be) past their prime, they’re all bands that can mostly put on a good show. Why not put them together for a mini-tour (or regular tour, fingers crossed)? The fact that they happen to be The Big Four — bands that are probably the most important to metal that don’t have names that rhyme with Brutus Freest, Brian Graiden, or Mack Slabbath — is merely icing (though admittedly rapidly aging icing) on the proverbial cake. Or maybe seeing Dave Mustaine standing next to James Hetfield and at least convincingly faking that he wasn’t nauseated, if not actually having a moderately good time, warmed my cold, bitter, bitter heart for just a moment. Just one, though.

-Sammy O’Hagar

The Big Four jams are terrifically awesome! And horribly sad! Though these four bands were among the six or seven best in the genre, gone are their days of creative excellence and great-to-incredible live performances. Instead, what remains in the place of once success-starved young rebels is now a collection of wealthy guys who comport themselves like the respected and entitled and rich. So there’s a down side. But it’s a minor one compared to the benefits: an additional boost to (or maybe motivational encroachment upon) the new wave of thrash metal bands, some feel-good time travel back to the pre-core commercial metal era, and most importantly, a screaming validation of the non-macho, perfectly balanced thrash metal sound, a style once shit-canned as hopelessly unhip by fascist Alternative tastemakers. I wonder if Pearl Jam (= Metallica), Stone Temple Pilots (= Slayer), Smashing Pumpkins (= Megadeth), and Soundgarden (= Anthrax) could sustain their own Big Four (Big Sour?) tour. And what would be their “Am I Evil”-style gang jam?

-Anso DF

Okay, kiddies, now it’s your turn! Weigh in with your answer to the question of the week below.

Tags: Anthrax, megadeth, metallica, slayer

Show Comments