In a new interview with Southeast Wreck Metal, former QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate was asked if he had any recollection of bottles being thrown at him and his bandmates when they were opening for METALLICA in Helsinki, Finland in October 1988. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Oh, yeah. I think I have a scar here [on my face] from that.”He continued: “[ QUEENSRŸCHE guitarist Michael Wilton] did a really interesting thing [at that show]. I applaud him for his courage, really. But it was a giant bottle of vodka that came flying up on stage, and it hit the neck of his guitar as he was playing it and it shattered all the strings. So the guitar just made this horrible sound. And so he was kind of standing there for a second, and he just grabbed another guitar and he finished the solo that he was playing. [Laughs] That was amazing. He missed like — I don’t know — five or six notes, but he got back on it and played the whole solo through. And because he did that, the audience just went, ‘YES!’ It was pretty amazing that he did that.”Tate added: “METALLICA had a huge presence in Finland at that time. And, yeah, we were the opening act. So a lot of people were just waiting for us to get off the stage. But we made them listen.”Geoff went on to admit that he wasn’t familiar with METALLICA’s music before QUEENSRŸCHE was tapped to open for the heavy metal giants nearly four decades ago. “I had never heard of METALLICA until we got on that tour,” he said. “And then that’s all I heard. After that they got huge. And it was a wonderful tour to be part of. We did all of Europe with METALLICA. And then we went to America and did two tours with them. So it was a wonderful experience, really. And we got to kind of know the band, and I got to know their music intimately from being with them every day. So, it was a nice period of my life. I have good, fond memories of it all… It was a fun time to be a young man on the road, touring, playing music. There was nothing like it. It was very unique.”During a 2009 appearance on the VH1 Classic series “That Metal Show”, Tate spoke about QUEENSRŸCHE sharing the same management as METALLICA back in the late ’80s and opening for the James Hetfield-fronted outfit on a U.S. arena tour. Tate said, “We toured with METALLICA during the ‘…Justice For All’ tour when we were releasing ‘Operation: Mindcrime’, and that band, hats off to them — thank you, guys — they shared their stage with us every night, shared their audience with us, gave us a leg up, and I’ve got nothing bad to say about METALLICA; they’ve always handled themselves very well, I think.”When pressed for a funny Lars Ulrich story, Tate said, “Back in that day, we all partied pretty heavy, so after the show, you unwind a little bit, have a few drinks, and sometimes you’d have a few too many. But he’d always come on the bus — ‘Hey, how are you, guys? How’re you doing?’ — he was usually dressed in tennis shoes and a robe. And he would urinate on our bus. And then the next day, the tour manager would hand him a bill and he’d pay it, and the next time he showed up, he’d do the same thing. He was like a serial urinator. We used to tease him about it — ‘God, we come on the METALLICA tour and you piss on us.'”Geoff will embark on the “Operation: Mindcrime – The Final Chapter” tour this year. The trek, which will kick off on March 18, 2025 in Tucson, will see the now-66-year-old vocalist perform the band’s classic “Operation: Mindcrime” album in its entirety for the last time.Originally released in May 1988, QUEENSRŸCHE’s third studio album, “Operation: Mindcrime” is regarded as one of the greatest concept metal albums of all time. The LP was certified platinum in 1991 in the U.S. and was ranked in the “Top 100 Metal Albums Of All Time” by both Kerrang! and Billboard magazines. Rolling Stone included it on a similar list, noting that “nearly 30 years after its initial release, ‘Mindcrime’ feels eerily relevant.”In April 2014, Tate and QUEENSRŸCHE announced that a settlement had been reached after a nearly two-year legal battle where the singer sued over the rights to the QUEENSRŸCHE name after being fired in 2012. Wilton, drummer Scott Rockenfield and bassist Eddie Jackson responded with a countersuit. The settlement included an agreement that Wilton, Rockenfield and Jackson would continue as QUEENSRŸCHE, while Tate would have the sole right to perform “Operation: Mindcrime” and “Operation: Mindcrime II” in their entirety live.Tate’s replacement, Todd La Torre, has released four albums thus far with QUEENSRŸCHE: 2013’s “Queensrÿche”, 2015’s “Condition Hüman”, 2019’s “The Verdict” and 2022’s “Digital Noise Alliance”.[embedded content]