June 22th, 2010 was one of the most metal days in the existence of… everything! The Big Four of Thrash Metal; Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax; not only played the same festival, the Sonisphere Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria, together. No, their performances were also recorded, edited and aired in over 800 cinemas all over the world, where over 100,000 fans watched the spectacle.
Now, a couple of days ago, the Box Set of the event was released. I bought it and shall do a short but to the point review for you within the next couple of minutes. Go on after the jump.
In addition, we will hold a Big Four Week soon (dates to be announced), where we will review each performance in-depth, as well as comparing the DVDs and Blu-Rays of the event and whatever else we can think of.
The Big 4 – Live from Sofia, Bulgaria (2010)
The Box
The Box:
The box itself is a cardboard box that looks pretty nifty except the extremely bad picture of James Hetfield holding the Big 4 guitar pick, that’s also included in this set. There were so many pictures taken from this gig and they had to choose one of the big screen? Come on.
On the back of the box, they chose a way better picture (see the DVD box picture) and everyone’s there… except Kerry King. So far, so good (… so what?).
DVD box outside
The DVD Box:
The DVD box looks pretty cheap at first look. Again, it’s a cardboard box and it just looks half-assed and not like it’s part of a special box set (and this is a special box set, isn’t it? You’re damn right, it is!).
I also noticed that they just took a couple of pictures and plastered them all over the set. Just 2 or 3 pictures that they put on the box, the DVD box and the booklet. That’s a shame, really.
.
DVD Box inside
The inside of the box, again, takes the pick pic. The first DVD contains the performances of Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer. The second DVD contains Metallica performance and bonus features, like a Behind the scenes documentary, including interviews and ‘Am I Evil?’ rehearsal footage.
For those who don’t know what’s the deal with ‘Am I Evil?’, members of all four bands got together and played the Diamond Head classic live. Everyone, except Tom Araya, Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, that is. Apparently these three were busy editing their performance for the cinema broadcast.
The 4 CD boxes
The CD Boxes:
Now this is where it gets really, really cheap. I mean, just look at these boxes! I get better CD boxes for €1 (or $1,42 [Oh yeah, I can use Google!]) video games. This is basically just cardboard, that features random pictures (except the Metallica one). You can tell something’s cheap when it breaks the first time you touch it and I dare you to get the fucking CDs out of these boxes without breaking them. Seriously. Fuck off.
Oh yeah, you get 2 Metallica CDs and 1 CD for every other band. Equality FTW!
Booklet outside
Booklet inside
The Booklet:
The 24 page booklet has some pretty nice pictures. Who would have thought we’d see pictures of James Hetfield and Dave Mustaine rehearsing in 2010 together? What bugs me personally is that every bandmember of every band got a solo picture, except Rob Caggiano. What’s up what that? Besides that, it’s pretty sweet.
What else do you get? A poster (I didn’t take a picture of that, sorry), photos of each band and a guitar pick. Is it worth your money? Definitely! Despite its cheapness in design and the lack of love for details, this is a pretty sweet set. It’s the Big 4 live, for fucks sake! Go and get it now!
