Mud-Splashing with Metallica in the Magnetic Field of Death (2010)

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Venue: Hipodrom / Zagreb / Croatia
Concert date: 16.05.2010
Attendance: 20
Ticket price: 300,00HRK

“Death Magnetic”, the new studio album from the venomous Metallica, has finally brought the band right to our doorstep. Where else but Zagreb, once again. The new record revived the hope that Metallica can still spit out some of that reactive, fresh napalm like in the good old days, the days before “St. Anger”. And with their latest visits to Europe the band confirmed that nothing at all has changed on stage. When you meet them, you get the feeling it’s still the very same Metallica, the one that, in the rage of dewy teenage rebelliousness, in the heat of passion and the hunger to prove themselves, carves up nothing but the best of its essence with its left hand. The band has kept a trait of character you can’t fault in any way when it comes to authenticity and the real deal. Metallica are simply the kind of giants who sweated blood for their position, yet kept a down-to-earth, folksy relationship with their fans. Arrogance and haughtiness are words foreign to them. And that’s exactly the greatness of character their fans value and respect the most. After all, respect is paid back with respect, and that kind of energy exchange generally flows both ways (as long as the relationship is clean, of course). It’s always been that way and always will be. Metallica stay hungry for live shows, and when they hit the stage they pull out all the stops to properly feed on the energy while sharing the time with their supporters.

It was a May date, and the support acts Gojira and Fear Of Factory, who accompanied Metallica around Europe through April, when the band played mostly in the eastern part of the continent, were replaced by High On Fire from the USA and the Danes Volbeat. For seven dates. Until the end of May. After that, Metallica head off to Australia, where they’ll play a tour that’s already completely sold out.

The first support act, High On Fire, are a Californian mix of stoner and sludge, with metal riffs of course: black, sinister and often stoned-and-held-back in their half-step nature. The rhythm section is lively, and between the “hollow” guitar phrases the drummer often lets loose to fill the empty space with colorful transitions, so that the whole thing, in its black atmosphere, fleetingly calls to mind Manilla Road at the moment they lost their sense of the epic. Still, the dreadful sound pretty much dictated the sad realization that it would be best if High On Fire cleared the stage as soon as possible, because the often indistinct roar, shaken out by a cold-ridden, guttural “troll” vocal, brought the people there that day nothing but dull deafness  The trio of “string-slingers” (read: “wire-pullers”) took pity on us after half an hour, when they wrapped up a set dedicated to promoting the new studio album “Snakes For The Divine”. Hallelujah.

If anyone still remembers Metallica’s long-ago show in Ljubljana, if I’m not mistaken in June 1999, Metallica were also opened for by Danes back then. Just like Volbeat. Except those Danes were the kind of band Metallica once learned from. Mercyful Fate with King Diamond on vocals! Anyway, Volbeat are old acquaintances who already toured with Metallica in the US last year. They play a ton of shows, so they’re in excellent shape as far as tightness goes. They’ve got three studio albums behind them, and their at-first-glance naive blend of the signature traits of rock n’ roll, rockabilly and even country with thrash metal riffs is far from clumsy, unconvincing or lacking the right energy pulse. Add the right dose of punk arrogance and the cup runneth over: Volbeat are one of the nicer surprises on today’s spiritually and expressively barren rock scene, which lives only on better and worse plagiarism. In a mass of conformism, Volbeat managed to get more out of it. To offer a bold mix and a recognizable songwriting beat. Volbeat showed off their cheerful yet adrenaline-fueled side on stage for a good 40 minutes, running through The Human Instrument, with which they opened the set, then Hallelujah Goat, Sad Man’s Tongue (the band dedicated that one to Johnny Cash), Mr. And Mrs. Ness, Pool of Booze, Booze, Booza, Radio Girl, Caroline Leaving, Still Counting, Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood. Of course, the sound wasn’t the best. The guitars were a bit buried and the drums pushed to the front. Michael Poulsen took over all the attention especially in the second half, once he’d warmed his vocal cords to proper working temperature and, by deliberately going for a touch of Elvis in his voice, added that recognizable stamp to Volbeat’s original songs. The very stamp that fans of their music come for. Volbeat set the stage on fire! Sadly, not at full blast. For that you need an indoor venue, where the band is the main act of the evening. The cover I Only Wanna Be With You was of course delivered in strict Volbeat manner: rousing and fun at the same time! Because Volbeat are big-time positive guys. The original of that song belongs to Dusty Springfield, and the band recorded it for their 2004 studio debut “The Strength/The Sound/The Songs”.

Volbeat are hot. They’re releasing a new album, “Beyond Hell/Above Heaven”, in September, and in November this year they head out on a new European tour, where the closest place to catch them will be Graz, on 06.11.2010.

The giants of the metal craft played Croatia for the first time in their career! As always, they ushered in the show with Morricone’s The Ectasy Of Gold, with giant screens showing the scene from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly with Eli Wallach wandering through an endless graveyard. The spotlights dim for a moment, then it all roars in at full volume and a mass of 20,000 people is already eagerly feeding on the volleys of the steel assault that is Creeping Death. The stage setup was two-story. If we call the stage the ground floor, with Ulrich set quite a bit closer to the audience, just behind the front line of vocals, guitar and bass, then behind Ulrich, along the whole length of a huge stage structure of the kind you see at the biggest European festivals, an extra stage was built. Additional props were ready on it (mic stands, acoustic guitars). A space like that lets the band spread out and fly past every boundary during the show. Under that extra stage is the space where the band retreats during the breaks when the scene on stage needs changing. That’s also where the techs are, who through darkened but see-through curtains can follow precisely and constantly what’s going on with Metallica on stage.

After Creeping Death, Metallica stay venomous and relentless! Here’s the new classic, which the mud-soaked, drenched crowd worships fanatically in the pouring rain: For Whom The Bell Tolls! The sound was excellent practically from start to finish. Solos audible, riffs clear, Ulrich’s fortress superbly tuned, and the poison of Hetfield’s well-preserved voice working like a magic elixir of intoxication. Relentless and full-force! The stern, devilish, brow-lowered stare of the singer/guitarist reflected a mind and spirit totally focused on the moment of playing in Zagreb. As far as the sound goes, we can’t ignore the fact that you had to be standing within roughly 100 m of the stage. The wind did carry the sound away, which you felt in direct proportion to your distance from the stage, but this time it was up to the individual whether to choose the mud and good sound, or just the sodden grass (the “fixed” and “clean” standing spot), and sacrifice the favorable sound conditions for it (let me hint that the author of this article still stinks of muddy sludge today).

The band skips briefly to the short but “groovy” single from “Reload”, Fuel, which they spice up with the first pyrotechnic effects, and right after it they return to the new classic marching tune Ride The Lightning. A short pause follows. The stage is bathed in blue. On the upper stage, above the drums, a beam of spotlight falls on James Hetfield. On acoustic guitar he opens the introductory “weave” of the band’s classic epic Fade To Black. I’m pinching myself over the extraordinary atmosphere unleashed by the energy flux pouring off the stage. The band plays full-on as a quartet, constantly communicates with each other, routinely fires up the crowd, and with the charisma of commitment and relentless metal “swagger” creates that sense of invincibility on stage. Barely 25 minutes had passed, and we were already through half of the cult “Ride The Lightning” album.

In the breaks Hetfield kept asking the crowd if they were feeling good. “If you feel good, Metallica feels good!” and similar urging from the charismatic frontman instantly hooked the audience, who paid no mind to the biting rain and the slippery, sinking ground under their feet.  The mood did calm down a bit when the band moved on to the new songs. As we enjoyed them, it wasn’t hard to draw the conclusion that the new material works great alongside the older stuff the band plays live. The epic The Day That Never Comes was especially convincing. The song may not be able to fill the shoes of a classic like One, but it also pointed out that it would have been better if Metallica had played the whole of “Death Magnetic” live and released it as a studio album. Anyone who knows the album probably knows that the producer literally stole the band’s soul in the studio, such is the devastating sound of utterly hollow substance captured on it. But live, the “Death Magnetic” songs come across in full, possessed form.

It’s worth noting that Lars Urlich missed the double bass drum rolls a few times, or was sloppy. You could feel it especially during the cult One. But that’s just something that happens. James Hetfield is the member who, with the power of his demonic charm, can cover up all the small, unwelcome slips or deliberate sloppiness. Of course, with a band like Metallica that shouldn’t happen, but at the end of the day these guys are made of flesh and bone too. So Hetfield is the main pillar of the band, holding all the strings in his hands when it comes to presenting Metallica on stage as a solid, unified stage figure that nothing can knock off course live. He sang the show fantastically, and what captivated most was his trademark sneering, brow-lowered look, with which he crowned the triumphant apocalyptic mood, the rousing magic that only Metallica know.

After Broken, Beat And Scarred, which James dedicated to the Zagreb crowd, there’s a longer break. The standard intro, which brought war to the stage, with machine guns rattling, low helicopter flyovers shaking the sky, and the stage, shrouded in darkness, shuddering several times from pyro detonations and even a proper fireworks display. When things calm down, a single lone silhouette stands on the upper stage. One! James Hetfield. That was also the signal that the regular part of the show was tipping into its third and final third. That from here on it’s classics only. Hammett’s guitar worked superbly in the solos of One. Evenly matched in sound, totally convincing in playing. The men didn’t stop, keeping the crowd in a delirium with Master Of Puppets, and then came a moment of surprise in the set list, when they stayed on the album “Master Of Puppets” and spewed out a bagful of venom in the ruinously galloping Battery.

There really wasn’t much guessing needed that sooner or later Metallica would have to slip something from the album “Metallica” into the set. The commercial ballad that everybody’s had their fill of. Damn it! Where’s the true faith of the hardcore metalheads here? During Ride The Lightning you’re nearly dead, while hordes of thousands open their throats on the “watered-down” Nothing Else Matters. The intro to Nothing Else Matters was a solo spot by Kirk Hammett, who wove tender acoustic, almost classically baroque-bent motifs, the kind that quietly announced that the ballad was waiting just around the corner! No whining, please! The energy was phenomenal and sent shivers down the spine. That went for practically the whole show. My skin hasn’t had that many goosebumps in a long, long time as it did at this Metallica concert in Zagreb. Add the obligatory Enter Sandman and the regular part of the show wraps up.

But the band is soon back with us. Hetfield announces the first song something like this: “This is the point of the show where Metallica always plays a cover! We’re going to play you a song by the band that inspired us to start playing music!” Mamma mia! There’s nothing better than hearing Am I Evil? by N.W.O.B.H.M. veterans Diamond Head in the fired-up hands of metal titans like Metallica. A magical choice among potential candidates like Helpless, The Prince or It’s Electric! Back when Metallica, behind the doors of their garage beginnings, was still shyly rubbing up against the sounds of Diamond Head, we simply stayed put. But this time with two originals! No, it wasn’t Motorbreath and it wasn’t Whiplash, but the opener of the debut “Kill ‘Em All”, Hit The Lights! The band extended the avalanche of machine-gun fire from every available gun with the expected Seek And Destroy, and one last time lifted a drenched, frozen but surely blissful and satisfied crowd up on its toes out of the mud, so that it could once more proudly swim in the mud pool of the Zagreb hippodrome!

All in all, the maximum was squeezed out of this event, given the lousy weather. Had the show been played in dry conditions, there would have been more energy coming back from the crowd too. But the crowd was already pretty worn out. It had been fighting the cold (10-11°C) and was soaked to the skin…  So we’ll definitely have to wait for a new opportunity, to catch Metallica in a closed hall or intercept them somewhere outdoors when a high-pressure system rules over Europe.

Maybe this time you’d have wanted to hear just one more classic. Instead of some newer “Death Magnetic” song, one more from “…And Justice For All”, but however you look at it, the representation of the “Ride The Lightning” album in the set list was more than dreamlike.

After this, a person can’t say anything else but that Metallica stayed Metallica. Metallica for all eternity. This is a band that doesn’t use its mountain of gigantic super gear to hide its playing behind cosmetics. Sure, effects for a full spectacle are sometimes necessary, but through all this stage machinery the playing freely flashes and shines, delivered with all the rousing commitment of a spirit of true disobedience. The stage is full of the guys the whole time as they run around it unstoppably, stand in duels shoulder to shoulder and spur each other on while playing. They come across like 20-year-old kids who’ve just crawled out of a basement rehearsal room onto their first real tour. Accessible and close to the masses. Of course, we’re talking about “homeyness” as far as musical professionalism allows. So for Metallica there’s no “cheap fart” of bad taste, no squatting, wavering or buckling. The band keeps the vehemence, power and stage relentlessness of a one-of-a-kind act that justifies its titan status. No matter the disgusting weather that followed us, in the end who gives a damn whether you’re wet, dry, muddy or clean, whether you stink or smell fine. Only one thing counts. Faith in metal! And there was plenty of it at this Metallica show.

After the show, as the endless horde staggered toward its vehicles, an unexpected piece of news suddenly shot through all of us! Ronnie James Dio had died! And that’s when we understood why the sky had been mourning so mercilessly all day…

Setlist

1. Creeping Death 2. For Whom The Bell Tolls 3. Fuel 4. Ride The Lightning 5. Fade To Black 6. That Was Just Your Life 7. The End Of The Line 8. The Day That Never Comes 9. Sad But True 10. Broken, Beat And Scarred 11. One 12. Master Of Puppets 13. Battery 14. Nothing Else Matters 15. Enter Sandman —encore—- 16. Am I Evil? 17. Hit The Lights 18. Seek and Destroy

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