LIVE REPORT: METALLICA AT THE PRUDENTIAL CENTER, FEB. 1, 2009

by Christopher R. Weingarten

For their last show of their American tour, Metallica had to compete with nothing short of the Super Bowl. Luckily, as you may know, Metallica are a big fucking deal. And they weren’t gonna let you forget it. They came armed with big, industrial-sized smoke machines that blow pillows of smoke in steaming tubes across the entire stadium, as well as four giant metal coffins that danced on the ceiling. The coffins came down from the ceiling like in Spinal Tap when they played “Creeping Death.” And lasers. Man, the lasers! It was like Floyd and shit. And big black balls fell from the ceiling! And fire! You could feel the fire in the 21st row! And it was different colors! How the fuck do you make different colors of fire?!

Metallica played in the round, the crowd completely engulfing all sides of the stage, closer than I ever imagined an audience getting to Metallica. This circular stage and a Metallica-sized budget raised a lot of questions that I still don’t have answers for. How did the band even get on stage? Did they drop from the sky while there was smoke everywhere? How does Kirk Hammett play wah-wah on one side of the stage and then walk to the other side and play wah-wah there, too? How does James Hetfield pick which of the eight mics to sing into? Is there a mic he ignores subconsciously? Why does Lars’ spinning drumset only spin 90 degrees at a time?

Metallica, from the 21st row
Twenty-five years since their debut, this show made no secret that this is a legacy band playing legacy music. Fresh off being announced as 2009 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they stuck closer to the party line then they have in decades. This meant nothing on their set list was from Load or Reload or ReReLoad or the dreadful, in this writer’s opinion, St. Anger. They did play six (six-and-a-half, really) songs off their new album, Death Magnetic (Revolver’s Album of the Year). But these songs get a pass because—unlike the ones on the aforementioned albums—they sound like the old ones. And Metallica didn’t want you to forget that their old songs are a big deal, adding totally unnecessary ritards on everything, making the audience sing all the hooks, ending with BIG ROCK ENDINGS, utilizing dramatic reverb whenever possible.

But even with all the pomp, since it was the final show of their American tour, Metallica really seemed like they were having an amazing time just bein’ dudes lucky to have instruments. Hetfield, relaxed, meandered about the stage like an animal looking for a place to shit, and then plopped down and grimaced. Lars hammed it up and mugged for attention. The crowd ate it up, of course, and during “Nothing Else Matters,” there were as many cell-phone screens ablaze as cigarette lighters. Unlike the previous night’s show, where Metallica played just one cover song (Blitzkrieg’s, uh, “Blitzkrieg”), we got two covers—the Misfits’ “Die, Die My Darling” and Budgie’s “Breadfan.” And, hey, tour’s over, why doesn’t bassist Robert Trujillo throw out handfuls of every single guitar pick the band could have ever used ever? And why doesn’t the band just chill out for 10 minutes with the house lights on, just kicking shit around and waving and farting off, as a bluegrass cover of “One” blares from the loudspeakers? These four are all masters of showmanship, so their easygoing, laissez-faire attitude towards being one of the most famous bands on earth might just be another stage trick, but from where I was sitting, dudes were looking pretty satisfied.

Metallica, after the ball drop