So Far, So Good, So Long? Thrash Legends Megadeth Take To The Killing Road One Last Time With Special Guests Anthrax And Exodus, Canadian Tire Centre, Ottawa, Canada, March 1, 2026
Photos By Rob Silva
Lights!
Sounds!
Drums!
Guitars!
And no 90’s dance remixes!
On the same day that my sister also undertook her own farewell tour to her 40’s, one of the founding fathers of the Big Four of thrash officially called time on their own 40+ year career with a final studio album and an ambitiously long 3-year farewell tour – and quite a bit of humility.
Arriving at my GA level seat and treated to the true sounds of classic hard rock over the PA, I ended up chatting with two other fans who’d travelled from Peterborough to catch the show. We mostly chatted about the number of times we’d seen all three bands taking part on this illustrious thrash metal tour package and the numbers stood as follows:
Guy #1: 2 (opener), 2 (co-headliner), 1 (headliner)
Guy #2: 1 (opener), 2 (co-headliner), 1 (headliner)
Myself: 3 (opener), 3 (co-headliner), 4 (headliner)
But, as we used to say in the old KNAC chatroom whenever Mr CalTech Grad made his appearance to brag about his supposed genius, numbers don’t matter. And while we were all able to ratch up our stats a notch on our live show experiences that night, the real important numerics that evening would belong to openers EXODUS as they opened with their new doom/thrash banger “3111”. With the current lineup of frontman Rob Dukes, guitarists Gary Holtand Lee Altus, and rhythm section Jack Gibson (bass) and Tom Hunting (drums), the legendary Bay Area thrash quintet are usually more familiar with playing smaller venues in North America, but on their first major tour of the continent’s main stadia, they make good use of the stage and stage time, which had been slotted for a half hour instead of the advertised 50 minutes. Nevertheless, for the avid thrash/trad metal fan wishing to reconnect with their whiplash-inducing moshpit years, EXODUS were the gold standard that night. Revisiting the Battery years that METALLICA sang about 40 years ago with their similar sweaty flair, EXODUS tore through their set while effortlessly balancing their setlist between their latest album Goliath and their past catalogue – though the menacing number of circle pit demons being called further into the vacuous beyond by Rob Dukeshad many punters including myself being convinced by his commanding demeanour that he’d be taking over the entire venue that night. Circle pits during recent offerings such as “The Beatings Will Continue” and the title track of the latest EXODUS platter…Dukes was the main commander of EXODUS’s show in all of his tank top gloryand nothing ever got by him. Even close to be when he was about to announce the band’s biggest (and soon-to-be-most-popular-karaoke) hit, he also was on top of the setlist:
“Duh duhduhduh duh-duuuh/JUN JUN JUN/Duh duhduhduh duh-duuuh”
“Gary! Stop fucking around!”
The true fans also knew for about a decade or so that Gary Holt has been proverbially instrumental in covering the guitar role in SLAYER and the subsequent reunion tour that had thrown everyone for a loop about a year ago – none more so than himself, which would explain why he teased his own intro to a song he was familiar with playing before Rob Dukes corrected him and the band launched into “The Toxic Waltz”. Closing out their set with a rarely-performed rendition of the classic thrash cut “Strike Of The Beast”, EXODUS’ performance was indeed one of biblical proportions for the lucky few who attended the sermon early.
Setlist:
“3111”
“Bonded By Blood”
“Blacklist”
“The Beatings Will Continue (Until Morale Improves)”
“Goliath”
“Raining Blood” (SLAYER cover teaser intro)/”The Toxic Waltz”
“Strike OfThe Beast”
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Metal!
Thrashing!
Actual anthems!
Payday for a well-known New Wave Romantic singer?
Co-headliners ANTHRAX are also in the preparing stages of releasing new material for the first time in a decade, but you wouldn’t have known it from their setlist beyond guitarist Scott Ian teasing a couple of unfamiliar riffs in between their set. And it was understandable as the veteran thrashers have often prided themselves on not only providing some of the best in gold standard-sounding thrash metal at its finest, but also in celebrating their origins as one of the key figures as part of the Big Four – so much so that the bulk of their setlist that evening was comprised of old-school classics with the exception of the rousing “Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t” from 2011’s Worship Music. Indeed, the last time I’d seen ANTHRAX was at the first installment of Heavy MTL with then-frontman Dan Nelson, who’d been in the band for about five minutes and they’d played maybe four known songs during their amended performance that day. Some 18 years later following their second reunion with Joey Belladonna and their first stop in Ottawa in 21 years (as guests of JUDAS PRIEST), the band, which include bassist Frank Bello, drummer Charlie Benante and second guitarist Jonathan Donais (also of SHADOWS FALL), opened with a blistering performance of the thumping classic “A.I.R.” followed by their rendition of JOE JACKSON’s “Got The Time”. Granted, the past couple of times I’ve seen ANTHRAX play this song, they play it not so much as insanely fast than what it called for, but more rhythm-based and fiery; even JOE JACKSON has gone on record as saying that his version is faster than ANTHRAX’s while questioning why the band were ever labelled as speed metal to begin with. In this particular instance, while the band mostly slayed on the song and Joey’s enthusiastic rapport with the crowd throughout ANTHRAX’s performance, one couldn’t help but notice that Scott Ian’s own stage performance was a bit subdued. He did attempt a couple of his infamous leaps but otherwise stayed to his side of the stage, the culprit being a back injury stemming from when the band played at the 70000 Tons Of Metal two months earlier. Still, even despite some blistering performances of classic thrash metal anthems such as “Caught In A Mosh”, “Metal Thrashing Mad”, their infamous cover of “Antisocial” by French trad metallers TRUST and “I Am The Law” among others, the bulk of crowdgoers sitting quietly in the 200 section did not go unnoticed by Ian, who called them out for not cheering loudly enough, and, to his credit, he did have a point as he was playing through a nagging back injury, so understandably, some more enthusiasm in return would’ve been appreciated on the crowd’s end. The band did otherwise appreciate the mass participation of the circle pit that Joey riled up during “Caught In A Mosh” though – so much so that they even closed out their set with another anthem of sorts done acapella style:
The Canadian national anthem.
You have to admit that it was a unique way to end a show considering that it was neatly segued to happen after “Indians” and without the need to reference stolen lands since the majority of the audience were well aware of the fact. They might have appeared a bit reserved in their velocity-enhanced playing that night, but ANTHRAX were definitely quick when it came to delivering a high-energy performance which spread out a bit of something for everyone.
Setlist:
“A.I.R.”
“Got The Time” (JOE JACKSON cover)
“Madhouse”
“Caught InA Mosh”
“Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t”
“Metal Thrashing Mad”
“I Am The Law”
“Antisocial” (TRUSTcover)
“Indians”
“O Canada” (Calixa Lavallée cover/Canadian national anthem)
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43 years!
22 members!
16 studio albums!
50 million units and counting!
And it all started with a Greyhound bus ticket to destiny back in 1983.
The well-publicized split between Dave Mustaine and his former bandmates in METALLICAhad never been known for its amicable parting of ways, even having at one point been an ongoing centralized topic of news coverage even as his own band MEGADETH was on the cusp of its own success. Sometimes the stories themselves were mostly blown out of proportion about the level of animosity Mustaine was harboring towards James and Lars, often with knowledge about how Mustaine would react whenever his former band was brought up in conversation; it’s tantamount to repeatedly asking Sebastian Bach about rejoining SKID ROW or Robert Plant about reforming LED ZEPPELIN, where the answer is patently obvious and heavily anticipated – and it honestly makes for really lazy journalism as well.
Nevertheless, the bottom line here is that MEGADETH have flourished as an important cornerstone in the Big 4 of thrash on its own merit. The band has navigated alternate courses throughout its career both publicly and through its impressive catalogue of classic thrash albums such as Killing Is My Business, Peace Sells and Rust In Peace to name a few. They’ve never completely compromised the unpredictable chemistry that’s been part of their musical DNA even after several lineup changes. And they’ve been rather transparent and honest about their past with little fanfare and even less drama in the spotlight.
And maybe beyond the ongoing arthritis issues that’s been affecting the longtime 63-year old leader and founder, that’s the best reason for Dave Mustaine to announce MEGADETH’s official retirement on his own terms, with one more final studio album and a massive world tour titled This Was Our Life which may or may not span up to three years in completing. Being his band, Mustaine’s long earned the right to celebrate what MEGADETH has meant to him, and out in front of a modest gathering of several thousand fans at the CTC that night, he and his bandmates James LoMenzo (bass), Teemu Mäntysaari(guitars) and Dirk Verbeuren (drums)did just that as the black – in this case, white – curtain is set to fall for one last time on the legendary thrash titans.
As their noticeable silhouettes could be seen gracing the large white garment in front of them, the flashy speedy chords of the opening number “Tipping Point” kicked off MEGADETH’s anticipated performance immediately. Dave and Teemu were exchanging riffs faster than a light saber battle while James and Dirk provided a thundering rhythm soundtrack behind them. Dave’s growling vitriol was still as acerbic as ever during “Dread AndThe Fugitive Mind”, “Angry Again”, “Sweating Bullets”, “Wake Up Dead”, “In My Darkest Hour” and particularly “Hangar 18”, the latter whose fiery arpeggios remained as solid now as they were some 35 years ago. Even deeper thrash cuts such as “Tornado Of Souls” and the surprise inclusion of “Mechanix” were played with the raw fury that the songs demanded. Not to mention that the anthemic-pumping energy of “Peace Sells” featuring an actual appearance by the band’s mascot Vic Rattlehead made for an unexpected treat as the towering skull-faced reaper wandered across the stage during their performance, eyeballing the quartet like they were their next individual mortal additions to a grim human collection.
And for anyone at the show who was anticipating an unscripted METALLICA rant by Mustaine in between songs, this would be the only part of the show that would thankfully not meet expectations. Could he have easily reminded the audience about how “Mechanix” became “The Four Horsemen”? Absolutely. Could he have snuck in his version of “Ride The Lightning” from MEGADETH’s latest album in between numbers and vaguely hope that it would have gone unnoticed? Probably. But he didn’t. He showed restraint and, most importantly, he took the time to champion heavy metal’s ongoing reign in 2026, specifically highlighting how MEGADETH finally cracked the top spot in the US Album charts with their self-titled album. To Mustaine, this accomplishment was no longer about competition between the two bands; this was about those same two bands getting the right amount of recognition in ensuring that the metal scene overall is not just overcoming or surviving, but thriving. As far as he was concerned, without even having to explain it in great detail, MEGADETH played its crucial role in metal and are finally getting the recognition for it. Plus, in the ever-shifting unpredictable current political landscape, a 40+ year old heavy metal band finally landing a #1 album, while an impressive victory of sorts, is also not as much of an important priority when there is a threat of potential global annihilation. And, while that same threat has been prevalent during much of the Cold War, impacting pop culture in almost every facet ranging from Hollywood movie plot lines to, well, band names, it’s an ongoing conflictual threat that’s been bred by tribalistic power and greed. Mustaine didn’t even have to address the background story in large detail behind one of the band’s most prolifically-written numbers “Holy Wars….The Punishment Due” as it had since taken on a role as being possibly the best realistically narrated anthem about religious conflict, primarily in the Middle East. As Mustaine once more pontificated in the fateful opening line “Brother will kill brother/Spilling blood across the land/Killing for religion/Something I don’t understand”, his tone of rage appeared to be directed not just towards humanity’s ongoing inability to learn how to prevent conflict, but its inability to understand differences altogether. And, like many of us, as stated in the lyric of the last song of the evening, it’s something that even Mustaine himself doesn’t understand.
Still, in closing out what may be the beginning of MEGADETH’s last-ever tour, the band’s celebration of its own life on the This Was Our Life definitely made for the perfect gathering of loyal Droogie fans and families from all walks of life united by music and memories that one of the founding fathers of thrash have created and curated over the last four and a half decades.
Thanks, as always, for keeping it real and leaving an indelible mark on us all, gentlemen.
Setlist:
“Tipping Point”
“Dread And The Fugitive Mind”
“Angry Again”
“Hangar 18”
“Wake Up Dead”
“In My Darkest Hour”
“Sweating Bullets”
“I Don’t Care”
“Countdown To Extinction”
“Trust”
“Dystopia”
“Tornado Of Souls”
“Let There Be Shred”
“Symphony Of Destruction”
“Mechanix”
“Peace Sells”
Encore:
“Holy Wars….The Punishment Due”
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