Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine Says He Only Played the 2011 Big Four Show After Metallica’s Manager Called Him a Pussy
If Dave Mustaine ever wanted to combat the assertion that there will probably be no more Big Four shows because nobody can stand him, stories like this one ain’t gonna help his case.
As you may recall, at the final Big Four show, which took place at Yankee Stadium in 2011 (re-live the magic with our live snark from that fateful day!), Mustaine told the crowd that he needed neck surgery, and it later came out that Exodus had even been approached about playing the gig if Megadeth had to bail out. At the time, Mustaine credited God — yes, the God — with getting him on the stage that afternoon:
“We called yesterday and said I couldn’t make [the gig]. And then I thought about it and I thought, ‘You know what? I trust God and I know He’s got me in His hands. I know that He hasn’t brought me this far through all this diversity and done all this reconciliation with all the [other] bands [the bill] and us all getting along this well to have the finale show [of the ‘Big Four’ tour] here in the States stopped. And I just thought, either God’s everything or it’s nothing, and I believe in Him, so that’s why I’m here.”
Now, in a new interview with Jamey Jasta’s The Jasta Show Featuring Jamey Jasta podcast, Mustaine credits someone else altogether with getting him on stage that afternoon: Q-Prime’s Peter Mensch, who is, of course, one of Metallica’s managers (in addition to managing plenty of other A-list acts). Said Mustaine:
“When I did the ‘Big Four’ concert at Yankee Stadium and had my neck in a neck brace riding on a golf cart to the stage, I had tape all over the stage that said, ‘Don’t headbang.’ I would have died if I headbanged that night because I was in an emergency surgery room two days before, ready to have my neck operated on. And I called up my manager, Mark Adelman, at the time, and I said, ‘Look, I played with Metallica, Anthrax and Slayerbefore, I’ve played New York before, I’ve played a baseball stadium before, so none of this is new to me. And I have to cancel because I need emergency surgery.’
“So, allegedly, Adelman tells this to Metallica’s management — whatever the guy with the name of a penis, whatever his name is… It was Dick or Peter or something… Peter! So [Peter] said I was a pussy. And so I went, ‘Okay. All right. Wrap me up. I’m going to New York.’ So they gave me a bunch of injections in my neck and put me in a neck brace and I flew out there and I played the concert and I came back. And I figured, nobody else knows about this except for him, and who’s the real pussy now?”
So Dave Mustaine, who was fifty at the time, endangered his health because a fifty-eight-year-old man called him a pussy in private. So that’s not insanely childish or anything. Did Mustaine learn NOTHING from the Back to the Future trilogy?!?!
A couple of other thoughts about this nonsense:
- I do not for one second believe that Mustaine forgot Mensch’s name. Mustaine pays closer attention to what’s happening with Metallica than Metallica does.
- I would believe that Mark Adelman would lie to Mustaine and says Mensch called him a pussy because Adelman knows Mustaine has the frailest of egos and would thus feel motivated by the comment to actually play.
Cute story, though.
[via Blabbermouth]
