In June 2004, SLIPKNOT‘s Joey Jordison and SLAYER‘s Dave Lombardo stepped in for METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich at the Download Festival in England. Ulrich was unable to perform due to exhaustion and personal issues.
Kirk Hammett recently spoke about Jordison‘s performance with METALLICA, stating that he spent the hours leading up to the set scrambling to find a replacement for Ulrich. This information was revealed in an oral history of the Download Festival published by The Guardian.
“I couldn’t do anything for the next three hours except talk to drummers,” Kirk said. “I remember seeing Dimebag [late PANTERA guitarist Darrell Abbott] wave at me from a distance backstage. I looked at him and mouthed, ‘We are completely f**ked.’ He came over laughing and just said, ‘You guys have got this.’ And that was the last time I saw Dime. I still regret not taking the time to have a full conversation with him,” since Dimebag was murdered just six months later.
Regarding Joey‘s performance with METALLICA, Kirk said: “Joey could play all sorts of things. I remember saying to him, ‘Bro, you’re gonna have to play a bunch of these tunes tonight.’ He was beside himself, he was so happy. At the end of the set, I turned to Joey onstage, and I asked him if he could play ‘Enter Sandman’. And I saw through his [SLIPKNOT] mask [which he was wearing while performing with METALLICA] that he had tears in both of his eyes. He was crying because it meant so much for him to be playing ‘Sandman’ with us at Download. I’ll never forget that.”
During the 11-song set, Jordison performed eight tracks while Lombardo and Flemming Larsen, Ulrich‘s drum tech, assisted with the other songs.
Years later, Jordison looked back on that moment, saying: “As cool as it was playing that show, what was cooler was playing in METALLICA‘s practice room. It was just me and those three guys, just warming up. What a dream come true, man. I’ll have dreams about it every once in a while. It was one of the best gigs of my life.”
Jordison died on July 26th, 2021 at the age of 46. The cause of death has not been revealed.
