Metallica Concert 2009

 

This is the fourth time I've seen Metallica in concert, and it had to be the best stage show they've put on to date. It was also the most intimate showing as this was the first time I've seen them indoors. All the previous times were either at Woodstock '94 or Giants Stadium. I went to the show with legalbgl at the Prudential Center and Metallica rocked the house.

They did a 2+ hour set, including two encores. Thankfully, they did no songs from the albums between the current release Death Magnetic and the Black Album (that would be the forgettable Load, Reload, and St. Anger for those of you who care for such things). It was either the old stuff or the new stuff. The opening song was This is Your Life and they followed it up with quite a few songs off the new album, including Cyanide, The Day That Never Comes, Suicide and Redemption (instrumental), and played a bunch of oldies but goodies including Master of Puppets, Ride the Lightning, Justice for All, One, Enter Sandman, Blitzkrieg, and closed with Seek and Destroy.

As you can tell from the photo above (taken from my cell phone, so the image isn't exactly the highest quality), the stage was set in the round, which presents challenges to the performers. Most acts perform with a proscenium stage, so that they're always facing the crowd. Here, James, Roberto and Kirk had to run all over the stage to different microphones to sing and entertain the crowds. Lars' drum kit was on a revolving turntable so he would face a different side of the crowd at different points in the show.

One high point of the show was when James singled out a kid who was in the crowd on the floor who was 10 years old; they ended up bringing him up on stage and Lars treated him to opening up Seek and Destroy - the final song of the night. They gave him drum sticks and that had to be a thrill for the kid.

As for the performances themselves, I tended to think that James Hetfield's voice was starting to drop off just a bit, but legalbgl thought that his voice was as strong as ever. Both of us thought that the opening act, The Sword, was pretty good, but we differed on Machine Head. I didn't go for the thrash sound, but legalbgl liked them.

All in all, it was a great show and you definitely needed to bring ear protection because it got loud - both the crowd noise and the bands. Metallica still knows how to rock after all these years.

It was a solid concert, and the Prudential Center was a great venue at which to see the show. The concessionaires did a great job and were quite personable and the facility had a great sound to it. Besides, you were able to get in and out fairly easily and that's saying something when you had over 10,000 fans streaming in to the concert.

UPDATE:
Legalbgl emailed to inform me that our concert is available online. The full set was:

That Was Just Your Life
The End of the Line
Ride The Lightning
For Whom The Bell Tolls
One
Broken, Beat & Scarred
Cyanide
Sad But True
And Justice for All
All Nightmare Long
Kirk Solo #1

The Day That Never Comes
Master Of Puppets
Battery
Kirk Solo #2
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
Blitzkrieg
Hit The Lights
Seek and Destroy