MEGADETH played its first show since frontman Dave Mustaine 's throat cancer diagnosis earlier tonight (Monday, January 20) in Helsinki, Finland. It marked the band's first live appearance in 15 months.
Mustaine and his bandmates opened for FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH at the Hartwell Arena with an 11-song set which included such favorites as "Hangar 18" , "Peace Sells" and "Symphony Of Destruction" .
MEGADETH 's setlist was as follows:
01. Hangar 18
02. Wake Up Dead
03. Sweating Bullets
04. Dawn Patrol
05. Trust
06. A Tout Le Monde
07. She-Wolf
08. Dystopia
09. Symphony Of Destruction
10. Peace Sells
Encore:
11. Holy Wars... The Punishment Due
Fan-filmed video footage of the show can be seen below.
MEGADETH 's tour with FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH and BAD WOLVES will visit 13 more European countries before ending on February 20 at the Budapest Sportarena in Budapest, Hungary.
The 58-year-old MEGADETH leader revealed his cancer diagnosis last June on social media. Five months later, he gave an interview to Rolling Stone in which he said that he wasn't officially in remission but that he had finished the necessary treatment and had started rehabilitation. He also credited his faith for getting him through the ordeal.
"I've been praying for a long time, and when this whole thing went down, I prayed a lot," he said. "I don't force it on anybody; I never would do that. But I prayed about it, and I believe that that was the whole reason I got healed so fast. A lot of people's asses are probably going to grow together right now that I said this, but the truth of the matter is, everybody has their own things that they believe. And I believe that taking good care of myself and being physically fit, as well as spiritually fit, got me back to this point."
Mustaine said that his positive mindset also helped him through this most testing of journeys.
"I'm not letting the cancer get me down," he said. "I have to thank the fans and obviously my family and God but there was no way I was going to let this take me down. When [ BLACK SABBATH guitarist] Tony Iommi got cancer, I thought, 'Oh, my God, he's gonna die.' And I actually cried. I wept, because they had said it was stage 4 cancer. And then, when I got it, I thought, 'Oh, my God. I'm gonna die.' Because I didn't know how bad it was. I thought of the fans and how sad everybody was gonna be. And I thought, 'I have to beat this.' No matter what, there's no way I'm gonna act like I can't do this. I can do anything if I set my mind to it."
Although most of MEGADETH 's 2019 tour dates were canceled as Mustaine battled the disease, the MEGADETH -curated Megacruise — which took place in October — still departed as scheduled, with Dave absent from the ship.
MEGADETH has been working on its 16th album, which bassist David Ellefson said is due out early next year.
