The Big Four consists of thrash metal legends Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax. These groups shared the same stage on September 14th, 2011 at the Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was a historical moment for their fans, especially when many believed Dave Mustaine made peace with Metallica. However, a few days prior, Megadeth nearly pulled out of the show due to Mustaine having to undergo surgery for stenosis (a neck and spine injury caused by headbanging).
It’s difficult to imagine Megadeth not being there, but somehow they made it. Mustaine decided to push through the performance, despite the physical pain he was going through. The frontman recently appeared on The Jasta Show podcast and recalled this experience and revealed that it was Metallica’s co-manager Peter Mensch that convinced him to perform. Mensch allegedly called him a pussy if he decided not to go through with it.
He said:
“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 Slayer before, 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?”
This isn’t the first or last time the two have clashed, obviously. Recently, he called out Lars Ulrich as the reason he put a halt on releasing the extended version of Metallica’s early eighties demo recordings – No Life ‘Til Leather.
