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gridloreSaw Metallica last night.
We went up on BART, had seats in the Ceiling Cat section. The setting was a "in the round" sort of thing. The stage was in the center of the Arena with people all around it. We arrived about a half hour before the first act, The Sword, hit the stage. Nice doom/alternative metal band out of Austin. A lot of reports compare them to early Black Sabbath, and I could sort of hear it. Their set was good, and for an act that was playing clubs until recently they made good use of the large stage.
Here they are performing Freya at the sadly closed 12 Galaxies in San Francisco. (You have to love a club named after the sign carried by a local street crazy.)
One nice touch about the show was how the handled set changes. Everyone's equipment was already on stage, but covered. When The Sword finished, roadies simply packed their stuff into the cases already there and rolled it away. This allowed a quick change over for Lamb of God.
Hailing from "Richmond Motherfucking Virginia", these guys are thrash/Metalcore. Great show, full of energy. Vocalist Randy Blythe was all over the place, at one pointing telling us this was their last show on the tour, and his mother had flown out to see it. I really should get some of their stuff.
This was their final number last night. Redneck
If you want a laugh, check out the music video for the song. It plays on people seeing their name and thinking they are something quite different.
Finally, after much waiting.. Metallica. They opened with That Was Just Your Life off Death Magnetic (and ended up playing most of the new album) which was accompanied by an honest-to-Halford laser light show that blew us away. The entire show was strong, with Creeping Death, For Whom The Bell Tolls, and One coming back to back. They blew up the stage a few times. The house was packed, and everyone was singing along. When I get my show download I'll give you the whole set list. But we ended with Master of Puppets, then encored with Whiplash and Seek and Destroy. This is where thinks got weird, silly, and then hysterical. For S&D Hetfield had the house lights brought up so he could see who was singing along. As the song began, black beach balls dropped from the lighting rig. Lots of beach balls. Enough beach balls to cover the stage. Fans were batting them into the mosh pits. Band members were kicking them at Lars' drum kit. Meanwhile, we were all damaging our vocal cords by screaming "Seek and Destroy!" on command.
But the song ended, and knowing the walk we had back to the BART station, Kirsten and I started heading downstairs. Then I saw them. people with cream pies. Lots of them, and Lars Ulrich took off like a jack rabbit. To no avail, he was caught by the guitar techs and absolutely covered in whipped cream and silly string. James explained that three band members had had birthdays on the road, but Lars, being born on December 26th, almost never does a show on his birthday. so they decided to get him a little early. We all sang Happy Birthday to Lars.
Here's the band debuting Cyanide
One really odd thing. The seats next to us were empty for all of The Sword and Lamb of God. During the break, a couple came up to claim them. Seemed nice enough. They left about four songs into Metallica's set and never returned. Those tickets were not cheap. Why bother coming for four freaking songs?
Next: Join us on Christmas Eve for the
Heavy Metal Sunday Christmas Spectacular!
We went up on BART, had seats in the Ceiling Cat section. The setting was a "in the round" sort of thing. The stage was in the center of the Arena with people all around it. We arrived about a half hour before the first act, The Sword, hit the stage. Nice doom/alternative metal band out of Austin. A lot of reports compare them to early Black Sabbath, and I could sort of hear it. Their set was good, and for an act that was playing clubs until recently they made good use of the large stage.
Here they are performing Freya at the sadly closed 12 Galaxies in San Francisco. (You have to love a club named after the sign carried by a local street crazy.)
One nice touch about the show was how the handled set changes. Everyone's equipment was already on stage, but covered. When The Sword finished, roadies simply packed their stuff into the cases already there and rolled it away. This allowed a quick change over for Lamb of God.
Hailing from "Richmond Motherfucking Virginia", these guys are thrash/Metalcore. Great show, full of energy. Vocalist Randy Blythe was all over the place, at one pointing telling us this was their last show on the tour, and his mother had flown out to see it. I really should get some of their stuff.
This was their final number last night. Redneck
If you want a laugh, check out the music video for the song. It plays on people seeing their name and thinking they are something quite different.
Finally, after much waiting.. Metallica. They opened with That Was Just Your Life off Death Magnetic (and ended up playing most of the new album) which was accompanied by an honest-to-Halford laser light show that blew us away. The entire show was strong, with Creeping Death, For Whom The Bell Tolls, and One coming back to back. They blew up the stage a few times. The house was packed, and everyone was singing along. When I get my show download I'll give you the whole set list. But we ended with Master of Puppets, then encored with Whiplash and Seek and Destroy. This is where thinks got weird, silly, and then hysterical. For S&D Hetfield had the house lights brought up so he could see who was singing along. As the song began, black beach balls dropped from the lighting rig. Lots of beach balls. Enough beach balls to cover the stage. Fans were batting them into the mosh pits. Band members were kicking them at Lars' drum kit. Meanwhile, we were all damaging our vocal cords by screaming "Seek and Destroy!" on command.
But the song ended, and knowing the walk we had back to the BART station, Kirsten and I started heading downstairs. Then I saw them. people with cream pies. Lots of them, and Lars Ulrich took off like a jack rabbit. To no avail, he was caught by the guitar techs and absolutely covered in whipped cream and silly string. James explained that three band members had had birthdays on the road, but Lars, being born on December 26th, almost never does a show on his birthday. so they decided to get him a little early. We all sang Happy Birthday to Lars.
Here's the band debuting Cyanide
One really odd thing. The seats next to us were empty for all of The Sword and Lamb of God. During the break, a couple came up to claim them. Seemed nice enough. They left about four songs into Metallica's set and never returned. Those tickets were not cheap. Why bother coming for four freaking songs?
Next: Join us on Christmas Eve for the
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So ...
Date: 21 Dec 2008 20:35 (UTC)Othrewise it looks like someone had fun.