Back in 2004, when Metallica were due to headline Download Festival in the UK, Lars Ulrich suddenly came down with an illness that left him unable to play drums for the set. Who else did they replace him with other than Slipknot's Joey Jordison? Yep, it happened and you can catch some footage of it further down!

On the Talk Music Podcast, actually spoke about the whole experience, saying he loved how comfortable Metallica made him:

"Slipknot and Metallica were on tour together - when we hit the Download Festival, I got offstage, I barely pulled my mask off and they said that James Hetfield needed to talk to me. Even though we were on tour for a while, it was a bit of a shock. He said, 'Lars can't make it to the show. Can you fill in?'

I just freaked out. I instantly said 'Yes.' Without Metallica, I wouldn't play the way that I do...I got into their rehearsal room, sat down with them and started hammering out song. It felt great.

They made me feel really comfortable. They didn't make me feel uneasy or anything like that. They were like, 'It's gonna be fun! We're gonna go up there crank it up!' They made it really easy for me. It wasn't freakish, it wasn't nerve-wracking; I just sat down, counted off and away we went...

It turned out way better than I thought. It wasn't one of the best shows I ever played, but it's just crazy and amazing that I got that opportunity and I'm very thankful.

2004 was a time before we had HD this or 1080p that, so the quality of footage isn't spectacular, but you can definitely hear Joey shredding well enough to thoroughly enjoy it. Check him out playing 'Creeping Death' and 'Enter Sandman' below:

What do you think of Joey's playing on the songs? Those double kicks on 'Creeping Death' are downright nasty! Slayer's Dave Lombardo also helped fill in for the set, playing 'Battery' and 'The Four Horsemen'!

Listen to Metallica now.