DRAGONFORCE guitarist Herman Li has commented on Dave Mustaine‘s recent outburst at a JUDAS PRIEST roadie.
MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine became irritated when JUDAS PRIEST‘s road crew began soundchecking while his band was performing at Spain’s Barcelona Rock Fest earlier this month.
The format at Barcelona Rock Fest is meant to eliminate the classic festival dilemma of having to choose between two bands that are playing at the same time, enabling artists to play almost continuously one after the other throughout the day. While one band is playing on one stage, the crew prepares the other stage for the next act.
After MEGADETH played the second song of their set, “Angry Again,” Mustaine stopped the show in protest of the crew on the other main stage which was getting ready for PRIEST‘s performance later in the night.
“We’ll wait till he’s done checking his guitar over there,” Dave addressed the crowd.
After a long pause during which he apparently flipped the bird at the crew member in question, Mustaine added: “The last night of the tour — we went all the way to the last f*cking night, and then some p*ssy over on the stage next to us has to start playing while we’re playing. How f*cking pathetic, amateur piece of sh*t you are.”
In a recent video posted on DRAGONFORCE‘s YouTube page, Herman Li commented on the incident, saying: “I’ve gotta defend Dave Mustaine on this one, in some way. Look, I’ve done a lot of festivals — not as much as him — but it’s super annoying when you’re playing the show and you hear the other stage next door, just doing the line check. You’re supposed to have a silent line check. You’re not supposed to have an amp blasting next door that you can hear while you’re playing…It’d become pretty annoying. You’re doing a show, it takes you out of the game, you start making mistakes…
“JUDAS PRIEST are obviously higher up on the bill than MEGADETH, because they’re playing afterwards, he continued. “They’re probably thinking, Well, we’re the headliner. Or maybe they were late — they couldn’t soundcheck earlier. Usually, the headliner soundchecks earlier in the day, because they’re the headliner. But with the flight cancellations and delays happening these days around the world, especially in Europe this touring season, they probably didn’t get there on time, and they said, Well, we’re the headliner, we gotta go…
“In defense of Dave, that’s super annoying! I know you’re a headliner, but I’m doing a show right now! I need to play! If I play s**t because some guy’s blasting guitar on the side, it’s not fair, and it’s not something you should be doing, especially at that level.
“He probably shouldn’t have flipped that guy off in front, and gotten the fans to talk s**t about him, but God, c’mon! We’re musicians, when we’re in the moment, we react.”
