Anyone who says Metallica is getting too old surely hasn’t seen them live. Personally, it was the most adreneline filled set I have EVER seen. Upon entering, every band member walked out under a caracature of himself, and when everyone was on stage James Hetfield (for the three people who don’t know who he is, he’s the lead singer) said a few words and they went immediately into ‘Blackened‘. They were all right on time. Despite what many think, too, their new basist (Robert Trujillo) fits the band very well. Although before Metallica‘s entry you could hear chants of “Bring back Newstead”, afterward not one person said those three words.
Metallica played a 2 1/2 hour set. Songs they played included ‘Harvester of Sorrow‘, ‘Creeping Death‘, ‘Master of Puppets‘, ‘Battery‘, ‘St. Anger‘, ‘Welcome Home (Sanitarium)‘, ‘Nothing Else Matters‘, and a lot more. There was even a little tribute to the late Cliff Burton (Metallica‘s original bassist) which involved a small bass solo from their current bassist. I admit it was good, but NO ONE even compared to Cliff. Kirk Hammett (Guitarist) is unbelieveable live. He’s a legend, bottom line. James would stop in the middle of a song and tell the crowd to scream louder the higher he raised his hands. It ended up him standing on his tip-toes trying to reach as high as possible.
When Metallica left stage first, nobody budged. After about three minutes of waiting, Metallica came out and played ‘One‘. This was probably the most visually stunning song they played. It started with them playing with the music video in the background, and somewhere in the middle of it, the video stopped and pyros and fireworks went off like it was the Fourth of July. It was amazing. Also, It was kinda cool that Hetfield and Hammett played the song on the guitars they used in the video. After playing ‘One‘, they again left the stage and again, nobody moved. They returned to play ‘Enter Sandman‘, their last song. After playing, James thanked the crowd for all of their support and help throughout the years. Although this was a great concert, there were some downsides.
First, since Hetfield is “clean” now, he will not allow beer to be sold after their predecessor’s set ends, second, they didn’t play ‘Fade To Black‘, and third, well there was no third. So if you can deal with remembering the concert you attended because you couldn’t get drunk, GO SEE METALLICA.
This was the greatest concert I have ever been to, and if you’ve never seen Metallica before, you are really missing out on one of the greatest rock/metal bands ever.
By: Anthony Ferro
