The Big Four of Thrash
Travel back in time with me…
The year was 1990, and I was fourteen years old, living in a small town in Central Wisconsin. I had been learning how to play drums for two years and had just joined my first band. So in short: an adolescent boy and all that entails, mixed with middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin. Got all that? Elsewhere, Metallica had recently released their …And Justice for All album, along with their first ever video for MTV. Dave Mustaine’s Megadeth had just released their masterwork Rust in Peace, and – almost simultaneously – Anthrax put out the brilliant Persistence of Time and Slayer released their seminal Seasons in the Abyss.
You still following? Okay, let’s put all this together…
Impressionable-teen-wannabe-musician + the culmination of thrash metal. Yeah, my life was changed.
There’s something about the genre that speaks to my most primal and base instincts. Twenty years have passed, and I’m now an “adult”, father of two. Yet every time I hear Charlie Benante pound out the thunderous opening of “Time”, the fourteen year-old inside of me can’t help but raise the devil horns to the sky and whisper, “Aw, fuck yes!”
Metal is a curious genre, always lurking just below the thick crust of popular music and rarely ever poking through. In fact, the years of 1990 – 1993 are the closest it ever got to mass acceptance, what with Metallica’s “Black” album, Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction, and Anthrax’s Sound of White Noise. Each of those albums featured shorter, simpler songs, which seemed designed to appeal to a wider audience. But even then, it only lasted a short while. Megadeth and Anthrax wandered aimlessly for the next decade, while Metallica went on to greater fame and fortune through their newfound “metal-lite” formula, only recently remembering what it was that made them great. And, it seems, along with that revelation, also came the realization that, “Hey! People still love that music!” And it’s true: though never really seeing any success on the charts, each of these bands enjoys huge popularity throughout the world, selling out clubs, theaters, and even arenas wherever they go.
Thus: The Big Four of Thrash tour.
The story goes like this: Last year, Metallica was inducted into the Hall of Fame. For the celebration, they flew out all their friends who helped them get to where they are, including members of the other “Big Four” bands. Apparently, all the nostalgia got to Lars Ulrich (Metallica’s drummer), and he floated the idea of doing a full-blown tour with the Big Four. It took some doing, but nearly a year later, the idea finally came to fruition with some dates in Europe and Australia.
But what about the States, where this movement was born? Apparently, they’re still working on that. But, in the meantime, they found a way to show the Sofia, Bulgaria concert in movie theaters all around the country through Fathom Events. The first showing was on Tuesday, with an encore presentation on Thursday, which I was able to attend. The footage was (mostly) uncut, featuring – in order – Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer, and Metallica, with short behind-the-scenes footage in between. Let’s break it down…
Of the four bands, Anthrax is far and away my favorite and the one I was most excited to see. After what seems like years in singer limbo, they recently announced that they’re rejoining with former singer Joey Belladonna. I’m personally a John Bush fan, so I was a bit apprehensive about what to expect from the more classically metal sound of Belladonna. I’m happy to report that Belladonna was not only impressive vocally, but a really entertaining character on stage. Sure, he’s not afraid to toss out scores of arena-rock clichés, but the guy is obviously an entertainer and it must be amazing for him to be on stage in front of 100,000 people when two months ago he was sitting on his couch doing nothing.
My only disappointment with Anthrax’s set was it only contained tunes from the Belladonna era and prior; Caught in a Mosh, I am the Law, Metal Thrashing Mad, Mad House, etc. And while they’re all great tunes, it would have been nice to hear Joey sing Only, which Scott Ian teased in his Twitter feed.
That aside, the set made me very excited for the future of Anthrax. Now hopefully they get off their asses and get that new album finished.
Next up came Megadeth. The band has always been a revolving door of musicians (aside from Mustaine, obviously), so you never really know what you’re going to get. This lineup, featuring Dave Ellefson back on bass after a long absence, looked and sounded a lot like the Rust in Peace lineup, which is arguably the best the band has ever been. And yeah, they sounded pretty damn good here, with one glaring exception: Dave Mustaine’s voice. Remarkably, the wider the guy opens his mouth, the less sound comes out and the more he sounds like a dying cat. It was painful at times.
The band played lots of old classics like Holy Wars, Hangar 18, Peace Sells, Sweating Bullets, Skin of My Teeth and more, and also tossed out a few newer songs like Headcrusher. In all, I was pleasantly surprised by Megadeth’s set as they’ve never struck me as a particularly entertaining live band. Perhaps it was the venue, but they seemed to have a lot more energy and presence than I remember.
And then came Slayer.
Wait, I’m sorry…
SLAYER!!!
These four, ugly, tubby bastards look terrible and each have the worst playing technique I’ve ever seen. Ever. Yet, they were tremendous in a way only Slayer can be. Lightening fast and loud as hell, I uttered the words, “Holy shit…” at least a dozen times. Again, they played a lot of their classics like Angel of Death, Seasons in the Abyss, South of Heaven, and Raining Blood.
Frankly, I’m not really sure what to say about Slayer other than I loved every second of it. Oh, and Dave Lombardo is GOD.
It never really occurred to me how much bigger Metallica is than the other bands until I saw them all lined up in a row. Again, they’re not my favorite of the bunch, but there’s no question that they’re simply on a much different level than their thrash counterparts. That aside, I’ve seen Metallica a handful of times so I knew what to expect. I knew Lars would keep time like a broken watch, racing each song to the finish and filling any empty space with obnoxious bullshit. Seriously, the guy plays drums like he talks, and if you’ve ever seen him talk, you know exactly what I mean. I knew Kirk would hop around the stage, milking the wah-wah pedal and doing his guitar hero schtick, while Robert would eat the stage with his amazing bass playing. And I knew James would conduct it all like the true Metal God that he is. They’re an entertaining band, without question, and built for the arenas.
But the true highlight of Metallica’s set was when they brought out all the other bands for an awesome rendition of Diamondhead’s Am I Evil? I hadn’t heard that song since I was a teenager, and I forgot how gnarly and awesome it is. My only disappointment is that Metallica ended with two songs from Kill ‘em All (Hit the Lights and Seek and Destroy) and didn’t think to bring out Dave Mustaine. I mean, really. That would have been a metalhead’s dream.
In all, I got four hours of “almost live” entertainment for $15. A fair deal, if you ask me. There is apparently a DVD in the works, so if you missed the theater event you’ll be able to check it out in one way or another. At least, until they bring the tour to the States…which they’d better.
METAL!
June 25th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Hm, I think I’ll break this down by band…
Anthrax:
I too am more of a John Bush fan. The Joey stuff is nice, but it’s nicer with Bush singing, and if they do skip over the Bush songs with Joey now in the band then Anthrax can go fuck themselves. This isn’t your reunion tour anymore so play stuff from 1993-2003! Iron Maiden did it and it was awesome and showed Bruce Maiden fans that the band had written some great songs in the mid/late 90′s.
Megadeth:
I agree about the Mustaine vocals. I think he is actually trying to sing when he goes for those high notes and it keeps failing. He can do the mid-range stuff great and should stick with that. But I don’t agree that they were aimless after Countdown. Youthanasia is by far my favorite album and Cryptic Writings is solid. They got aimless with Risk though. That album sucked so much. And then after that it was “wait, we’re going back to our roots” until last year when they actually did with Endgame. Though I did enjoy TWNAH and the first half of System. But not United Abominations. I rank that one with Risk.
Slayer:
Why are these guys going on right before Metallica? I can see them going on before Anthrax in 2010 because Anthrax has been such a mess, but Slayer has always been the smaller of the Big 4.
Metallica:
You really never saw how much bigger they were until then? Back in the 80′s they were the bigger of the bands, but not by that much. Megadeth, Anthrax and (sometimes) Slayer would put out awesome records that went gold and platinum, and then Metallica would put out something that would go double platinum. It really wasn’t until their self titled album that they became the superstars. I bet that album alone is why they are still packing stadiums and without it they would be back with the rest of the bands after Load and Reload came out.
And while Metallica were my favorite band back in the early 90′s, I must say that once I started listening to the other 3 bands they quickly dropped. Metallica’s 80′s output is all fantasic, but I find the music and/or lyrics of Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth far more interesting these days, even on new releases.
June 25th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Yeah, I knew they were much bigger, but just seeing them all stacked up against one another like that was sort of eye-opening. It was almost like three garage bands and then BAM! Biggest band in the world! It was kind of jarring.
I agree with you on Slayer. It was kind of odd, the order they played. I guess I would have ordered them Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica.
Regarding the Anthrax/Joey stuff, I agree. However, Scott Ian did say that they had rehearsed Only and it sounded great. I don’t know why they didn’t play it, though. Hearing that, “What Doesn’t Die”, and other stuff from the John Bush era would’ve been awesome. But, to be fair, Joey was in the band for about two weeks before the tour started. I’m guessing he’ll need to do quite a bit of catching up…
So I take it you saw this too, Rusty? What did you think of it?
June 25th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Nope. I completely forgot about it being in theaters. I should be ashamed for that.
I just looked up to see if there were any showings in Madison and saw that 2 places were showing and they even had encores on the 24th. Oh well. Guess I’ll just wait for the DVD. Hopefully that shows the full sets.
June 25th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Persistence of Time is one of the best metal albums ever. I remember that heady time in the early 90′s when we all thought metal was going to finally make it big and kill pop music forever… then Nirvana happened. Not begrudging Nirvana, but it still hurts a bit.
June 25th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
John, you are now my favorite DGR crew member. \m/ (>.<) \m/
And yes, Dave Lombardo *is* god on the drums. Charlie has also been one of my all-time favorite drummers.
First, here is a much better video for the Am I Evil? performance – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AdzqU4I1MM – The video isn't synced up with the audio, but the audio is much better than the one in the article.
Now for my $0.02 – I'm a little older than John, and probably Rusty and Zinswin too (I was already a teenager when the first album of each of the Big Four was released, although I didn't "discover" them until a couple years later). For that reason, these are my opinions of the bands:
Anthrax:
I was a huge fan of the albums with Joey on vocals. By the time John Bush joined, the band had already begun losing my interest due to some of the songs on Persistence of Time being slower and less thrashy than their earlier stuff. I tried to like Sound of White Noise, but to my ears, the band just wasn't the same. The last Anthrax album I bought was PoT. Best album = Among the Living
Megadeth:
Everyone knows Dave Mustaine's vocal skills are quite lacking (especially live), but he more than made up for it with his guitar skills and songwriting. As with Anthrax and Metallica, they strayed away from their thrash roots during the 90s. The last album I bought was Countdown to Extinction. Best album = Rest In Peace
Metallica:
Easily the "biggest" of the Big Four, their first three albums are arguably some of the best metal albums ever recorded, with Master of Puppets being *the* best metal album of all time in my opinion. I can't help but think that when Cliff died in that tragic tour bus accident, a part of Metallica died with him, as the band's albums slowly deteriorated into pop metal beginning with the black album. The last album I bought was And Justice For All. Best album = Master of Puppets
SLAYER!!:
The band whose name you cannot just say, you have to scream it if you're a true fan. Of the Big Four bands, Slayer is IMO the only one who has stayed true to their thrash roots throughout their career. Because of that, I feel that, while they never reached the commercial success of the other bands, they have the most dedicated fans. Also, they are the only band of the Big Four that I have bought (and enjoyed) every album. Choosing their best album is hard for me to do (could easily be a 3-way tie between Reign in Blood, South of Heaven, and Seasons in the Abyss), but I'll go with Reign in Blood, widely regarded as the best thrash album ever recorded.
June 26th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Ah, shit, good times. Really looking forward to seeing Slayer-Megadeth-Testament at the X on August 21st. I was pissed that they cancelled the original show in February, but now it’s for the better, as the show is the day before my birthday and Slayer is doing all of Seasons in the Abyss and Megadeth is doing all of Rust in Peace.
John, did you see the Clash of the Titans tour back in 92 or so? It was Slayer-Megadeth-Anthrax at one of the “resorts” in Somerset. Shitty facilities and balls-out hot to the point that people were passing out, but goddamn, that was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
June 28th, 2010 at 9:02 am
I’m actually going to that concert on the 21st! Maybe I’ll see you there…
No, I never went to that concert. I remember hearing all about it, though. It was big news back in the day.
July 4th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Yeah, it came close to being a riot because people were shit-faced by the time Alice in Chains went on at noon, and there were a bunch of idiot Nazi skins that were starting shit because they were pissed Slayer was on first. I actually wasn’t drunk at that show, which was a good thing because it was so hot, I got sunburnt to the point my back started to blister. Good times :b
That place in Somerset (it was River’s Edge) always had fucked up shows back in the day. I saw Pantera/Sepultura/Prong there, and Sepultura had to pull out (IIRC it was when Max’s kid died) so the brain-trusts started pulling down the merch booths and setting them on fire. And then there was the time at Metallica/Suicidal Tendencies/Danzig that I lost my contacts after imbibing a pint of high-grade tequila and some psychoactives.
Slayer is always good in concert. I saw them the last time they came through with Lamb of God and Mastodon. Some goth chick on E kept feeling me up in the pit, and I got a guitar pick from Jeff Hanneman.
August 23rd, 2010 at 8:01 am
[...] like a “bucket list” activity, doesn’t it? I touched on the subject earlier in my Big Four of Thrash article, and after having experienced a taste of it in the safety of a movie theater, seeing it [...]