(Credits: Far Out / Public Domain / Megadeath)
Sun 29 March 2026 10:00, UK
You can always rely on Dave Mustaine’s ‘talk first, think later’ motormouth to bring a world of trouble to the Megadeth juggernaut.
1988 was a white-hot year for thrash’s peak. Alongside key records from the ‘Big Four’ Anthrax, Slayer, and former bandmates Metallica, Megadeth were riding high in the metal world, that year’s So Far, So Good… So What! faring well in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and embarking on the hefty 132-date world tour. Their biggest yet, Megadeth’s popularity would pull them for the first time to Ireland, playing dates across the border in the Republic’s Dublin and Antrim in the North.
This was a febrile time in Northern Ireland. In the month of March alone, the Troubles’ bloody sectarian conflict had reached a depressing nadir, the funeral for the ‘Gibraltar Three’ Provisional Irish Republican Army members bombed by a Loyalist and shooting three attendees dead. With tensions at a fever pitch, the subsequent funeral of one of the casualties at Milltown Cemetery was accidentally interrupted by off-duty British Army corporals who were chased and ultimately killed by the IRA.
Amid such a sensitive political climate, what Antrim’s The Forum audience needed was a tactful and conscientious handling of the conflict, or better yet, to avoid touching the topic altogether. Instead, they got Mustaine. Arriving two months later on March 11th after their show in Dublin’s Olympic Ballroom, the Megadeth team were informed that bootleg merch was being sold in the venue. Sending out a roadie to put a stop to the unofficial sales, the vendor explained that they were raisng for the funds for the ‘Cause’.
“I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded cool.’
Dave Mustaine, Rust in Peace.
For those in the community, the ‘Cause’ euphemistically referred to the political ambitions, cultural protections, and armed struggle of any given paramilitary running the area, Republican or Loyalist. Having already downed plenty of Guinness, nuance flew out of the window as a clearly drunk and belligerent Mustaine took to the stage and began projectile gobbing on the front row after having received a hocker while signing autographs earlier. Before long, a volley of plastic beer glasses and coins rained on the band, and one metalhead keen for a scrap received Mustaine’s Jackson Flying V guitar to the face.
It’d get much worse. Playing the last number of their encore, a cover of the Sex Pistols’ ‘Anarchy in the UK’ prompted one of the greatest room misreads in rock history: “Give Ireland back to the Irish. This one is for the cause.”
According to eyewitnesses, the belligerent but otherwise unified audience suddenly became struck by the sectarian paranoias, scrutinising each other’s responses in an effort to root out who supported, or didn’t, Mustaine’s ignorant mouth running. Fights broke out, the venue was trashed, and a panicked Megadeth crew were escorted back to their Dublin hotel in a bulletproof bus. Apparently, a hungover Mustaine didn’t remember a thing until bassist David Ellefson jogged his memory the next morning.
Lesson learned. Mustaine would revisit the incident for 1990’s ‘Holy Wars… The Punishment Due’s exploration of ethno-religious division, but the Antrim riot proved a sheepish chapter of the Megadeth story.
Years later, in 2016, after the Antrim Guardian covered the incident, Mustaine took to Twitter to express his remorse. “Honestly, I deeply regret it,” he stated with contrition. “I clearly was misinformed and was drunk. I totally understand, respect and apologise.”
