Metallica's headlining set at the 2004 Download Festival is most famous for not featuring the band's drummer and co-founder, Lars Ulrich, who was hospitalized the day of the show.
In a newly-published oral history of the Download Festival, though, Metallica lead electric guitar player Kirk Hammett revealed that that fateful day also proved to be the last time he ever saw Pantera guitar legend Dimebag Darrell, who was tragically murdered onstage in Columbus, Ohio – while performing with his post-Pantera group, Damageplan – just months later.
“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.”
“Joey could play all sorts of things,” Hammett recalled. “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 mask [from Slipknot's stage show] 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.”
