On a recent episode of The David Ellefson Show podcast, former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson looked back on the 2010 Jägermeister Music Tour, which featured a stacked lineup of Anthrax, Slayer, and Megadeth.
“That [2010] tour, technically it was kind of a Clash Of The Titans, it was Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth,” Ellefson recalled: “It didn’t have a rotating lineup. It was just that lineup the whole tour. But we couldn’t use the name Clash Of The Titans. Apparently they had done another movie [using that title] since 1991, and so we couldn’t get the name. So Jägermeister was the sponsor, so it just became the Jägermeister tour featuring Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax.”
Ellefson also shared a behind-the-scenes anecdote about Dave Mustaine’s frustrations with Megadeth’s slot on the tour: “I remember that was always such a thing. Dave [Mustaine] hated playing before Slayer. We’ve always played before Slayer, even when we went out and did L’Amour and City Gardens in Trenton back in 1985. And just because Slayer was a band before we were, they kind of naturally would be given that closing slot.”
Despite that, Ellefson appreciated the placement: “But I tell you what, even though [we] were always co-headliners with Slayer, I felt like… that middle slot is always the best slot, because, to me, I feel like, look, Anthrax fans are gonna stay, especially if they’re Slayer fans. All the Megadeth fans, of course, are gonna stay. The Slayer fans have to stay ’cause they’re waiting to see Slayer. So it’s like, we got everybody. It was the creamy center, because after we played, sometimes the venue, it didn’t clear out ’cause it’s Slayer playing, but if you’re a Megadeth [or] Anthrax fan and you’re not a Slayer fan, you might not stay. So, to me, being in that middle slot was always the best position.”
The 2010 tour came on the heels of a historic moment for thrash fans: the first-ever shared stage performance of the so-called “Big Four” (Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax) at the Sonisphere festival in Warsaw, Poland, in front of 81,000 fans. The lineup continued through additional Sonisphere dates that year, followed by more joint performances in 2011, including the final “Big Four” show at New York City’s Yankee Stadium on September 14, 2011.
Though Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax have performed together at festivals such as Soundwave in 2013 and Heavy MTL in 2014, that original Big Four lineup has not reunited since.
