Back on March 14th — the 37th anniversary of Metallica's first show ever — the band's drummer and co-founder Lars Ulrich shared his memories of the momentous gig, including his diary entries from the time, on Instagram. Today, he's followed up with a post by looking back at the band's second and third shows, which took place at Hollywood's Whiskey a Go Go and saw the band opening for English metal legends Saxon.
"No sound check. Sound was awful," the basher took note of in his handy notebook, quipping of the first of the two gigs, "Played great myself, but the band as a whole sucked. Went down OK." The drummer also shared vintage photos of the group's performances and flyers.
In his caption, Ulrich recalled, "For us at the time, this was like winning the lottery. Not only was this our first Hollywood gig, but in the early 80s, Saxon were one of the biggest, most exciting & influential hard rock bands in the UK & Europe." He detailed seeing the group six months prior to landing the opening slot, noting his good fortune at being able to "sneak backstage" at the show.
The drummer then remembered a member of Saxon's crew chatting Metallica up post-show, asking cheekily if the group — who had just played a set full of Diamond Head covers — had ever heard of Diamond Head. Ulrich writes that he snapped back, "Of course, we have, we just played a bunch of their songs!" but it turns out the monitor engineer worked for that group and Saxon and was just taking the piss. That man, Paul Owen, went on to work the same position for Metallica for 22 years and 1300 shows.