Official Video Of MEGADETH’s ‘Ride The Lightning’ Performance In Bogota

MEGADETH played its version of “Ride The Lightning”, the title track of METALLICA‘s 1984 album for which MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine got a co-writing credit following his 1983 departure from the legendary heavy metal band, live for the first and second time during its headlining concerts Sunday night (April 26) and Monday night (April 27) at Movistar Arena in Bogota, Colombia. An official video of the performances can be seen below.

During a February 2026 appearance on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, Mustaine spoke about his decision to include his version of “Ride The Lightning” on the final MEGADETH album. Regarding when he came up with the idea to record this particular METALLICA song, Dave said: “Well, we were past the halfway point in the album. ‘Cause that song ended up being song number 13. And when the time came to do that, we were talking about — what we usually do is a rendition of somebody’s song that we like or something like that, or a remake. And when I was talking with [my son] Justis [who is part of the MEGADETH management team], he had said, ‘Why don’t you do ‘Ride The Lightning’?’ And I kind of looked at him like, ‘Hmm.’ And then I thought about it. I said, ‘That’s probably a good idea.’ And I said, ‘Let’s try it.’ We tried it. It was cool. And I said to the band guys, ‘Okay, if we’re gonna do this, let’s make sure that we do it as good as the original or better.’ ‘Cause we gotta do that. If we’re gonna honor those guys by doing a new version of the song that I did with James [Hetfield, METALLICA frontman], I think it’s important to make it as good or better. And what we did was we sped it up a little bit, and the drum fills at the very end, I told Dirk [Verbeuren, MEGADETH drummer], ‘Have fun there. And you can beef it up if you want’. And I talked to Teemu [Mäntysaari, MEGADETH guitarist] and I said, ‘The guitar solo that’s in there, try and stay close to it, if you can.’ ‘Cause it really is Kirk [Hammett, METALLICA guitarist] doing an improvisation of what I was doing. ‘So, let’s have fun with it.’ And the solo was a little different — close to the original that Kirk did, but it was a little different. And then there was the singing. James and I have instantly identifiable voices, but they’re not at all alike. And I was listening to James sing, and it was fun for me to be able to listen to his vocal parts and break it down and hear how he sings, and then to go back and approach the song and try and sing in my style, which I do believe I put my DNA on that.”

Source: https://blabbermouth.net/news/see-official-video-of-megadeths-ride-the-lightning-performance-in-bogota