From lead guitarist Kirk Hammett’s firestorm leads on “Creeping Death” to the apocalypse thrash of “One,” very little has changed about the four horsemen of Los Angeles metal since 1981—save a few hard habits and a bassist or two. But any longtime, capital-“M” Metal-head should’ve been struck by two changes during the invigorating headbanger’s ball on Saturday night.
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Bassist Rob Trujillo and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett give a bit of fuel and fire to Metallica’s set at John Paul Jones Arena. |
First, Metallica singer James Hetfield switched the words to “Fade to Black,” the group’s slowburn suicide epic, from denial to determination; the deathly loss he swore “can’t be real” is now something that the Frankensteinian frontman says “keeps me real.” Second, the band is back to playing with fire.
“Do you feel good?” Hetfield asked the large (and largely male) crowd at John Paul Jones Arena. Roars and horns were thrown back at him. “That’s fine. But Metallica’s here to make you feel better.” And, he added before kicking off the power chord rallying cry of “Creeping Death”: “I sure hope you like the old stuff.”
That’s actual fire, by the way—columns of flame that erupted from the stage during “One,” and tall as the blazes that scorched Hetfield during the band’s ’92 tour with Guns N’ Roses. But the on-stage pyrotechnics were little compared to the fuse lit under a band that once hired a therapist and exorcised whiny, snivelling demons on 2003’s St. Anger. Suddenly, James Hetfield is heavy metal’s unlikeliest motivational speaker, a man who skipped across a stage beneath coffin-shaped lighting rigs during songs like “Cyanide” and kicked Metallica-branded black beach balls out to the audience during a three-song encore.
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Singer and guitarist James Hetfield muscled his 28-year-old metal band through a two-hour set on Sunday night, thick with cuts from Death Magnetic and older albums like Ride the Lightning. |
Likewise, Hetfield’s band—including a cocky, exuberant Lars Ulrich on drums—also seemed the most motivated by their frontman’s heavy metal optimism. Robert Trujillo and Hammett mugged at one another while their fingers blurred during solos, and Ulrich’s tongue lolled out of his mouth as he hammered through the swagger of “Fuel” (the only cut from the Load/Re-Load albums) and a cover of Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy.”
Before the show-closing “Seek and Destroy,” Hetfield asked for one more blast of energy from the crowd. “There’s no use taking it home,” he said, his voice surprisingly youthful when not delivering the gruff cackles of “Master of Puppets.” The evening’s biggest shock might’ve been that, 28 years into a career, Metallica knows how to use all of its energy while visibly enjoying its day job.
