Megadeth performed their take on “Ride The Lightning,” the title track from Metallica’s 1984 album during headlining shows on Sunday (April 26) and Monday (April 27) at Movistar Arena in Bogotá, Colombia, marking the first and second times they’ve played the song live. Official footage of the performances is available down below.
The track, has deep roots in Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine’s past, making its inclusion a significant milestone. The song, which Mustaine co-wrote with James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and the late Cliff Burton before his 1983 exit from Metallica, has now been reintroduced through Megadeth’s lens on the band’s latest self-titled album. The decision to revisit the track came relatively late in the recording process.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk,” Mustaine explained how the idea took shape: “Well, we were past the halfway point in the album. ‘Cause that song ended up being song number 13. And when the time came to do that, we were talking about — what we usually do is a rendition of somebody’s song that we like or something like that, or a remake.”
“And when I was talking with [my son] Justis [who is part of the Megadeth management team], he had said, ‘Why don’t you do ‘Ride The Lightning’?’ And I kind of looked at him like, ‘Hmm.’ And then I thought about it. I said, ‘That’s probably a good idea.’ And I said, ‘Let’s try it.’ We tried it. It was cool. And I said to the band guys, ‘Okay, if we’re gonna do this, let’s make sure that we do it as good as the original or better.’ ‘Cause we gotta do that. If we’re gonna honor those guys by doing a new version of the song that I did with James [Hetfield], I think it’s important to make it as good or better. And what we did was we sped it up a little bit, and the drum fills at the very end, I told Dirk [Verbeuren, Megadeth drummer], ‘Have fun there. And you can beef it up if you want’.”
In a separate interview with Guitar World, he explained that revisiting the song allowed him to properly close the loop on his early career while showing respect to his former bandmates.
“The main reason I chose to do this was to close the circle and pay my respects to my partners. I thought this was a really great way to do that. Whenever we select any other band’s music to go on our albums, sometimes there’s a lot of thought behind it and sometimes there’s not. This was one of the ones that we thought long and hard about, because all I wanted to do was play the song I wrote with the guys in Metallica.”
“I wanted to pay my respects to James Hetfield, who I think is an amazing guitar player, and Lars Ulrich, who was an excellent songwriter. I remember when I was there and we were putting these songs together, Lars didn’t just sit there; he was very instrumental in making these songs. Of course, when we got into making demos of these songs, it was fun to do the recordings, but we were never really able to do a full-on produced version of ‘Ride The Lightning‘ [while I was in Metallica], and I would have loved to have heard that. I gotta tell you — listening back to James‘ original vocal performance, it was really tremendous.”
He concluded by clarifying that there was no hidden agenda behind the cover, simply an admiration for a historic piece of heavy metal music.
“Anyway, there’s no big strategy; I have respect for the guys, and I just wanted to show that. And it’s a hell of a song.”
In Bogotá, the band worked through a career-spanning set before dropping “Ride The Lightning” late in the show as a standout moment:
- “Tipping Point“
- “Hangar 18“
- “Wake Up Dead“
- “In My Darkest Hour“
- “Skin O’ My Teeth“
- “I Don’t Care“
- “She-Wolf“
- “Sweating Bullets“
- “This Was My Life“
- “Angry Again“
- “Trust“
- “Tornado Of Souls“
- “Let There Be Shred“
- “Mechanix“
- “Ride The Lightning” (Metallica song) (Live debut)
- “Peace Sells“
- “Symphony Of Destruction“
Encore:
- “Holy Wars… The Punishment Due“
