A good friend of mine, Daniel Norberg, phoned me a few days before the Metallica concert and asked if I had any plans since he had a spare place left in the VIP room.
My imitate thoughts where, “Child on the way? No. Wedding? No. Funeral? No.”, my answer to Daniel was an badly imitating James Hetfield, “yeeeeaaaah!!” (as in, no, I don’t have anything planned).
But. First time around, Mr Hetfield managed to be sick; had eaten some Asian food and got food poisoning. We only got to see the warm-up acts, drink 2 beers and then head back home. Extreeeeeeeeeemely disappointed.
All of us were very gutted. But as we left the VIP room we quickly put everything in context and realise how lucky we were. Most people there had actually paid for their tickets and traveled from far away. I almost ended up saying sorry to teens as I walked out.
Second time around. Everything went as planed. As a gift to everyone Metallica had printed special t-shirts that they gave away for free. It was a extremely ugly black t-shirt with neon print showing Mr Hetfield being sick.
Na, the big gift wasn’t the t-shirt. It was the amazing show.
They were absolutely great.
I am a huge fan of Mr Hetfield presence on stage. I had never experienced it live, but I have during my own music career tried to re-invent his presence and make it my own. I like to think that when I play live I’m a mixture of James Hetfield, Chuck Berry, Angus Young and Dave Grohl. Don’t think I pull it off, but know people appreciate me trying.
They played a collection of old and new. As always, you wished it was more old and less new. But the new songs do work really well with the mix.
The latest member, bass player Robert Trujillo, fitted in nicely and definitely added to the show. Hetfield lived up to his expectations, Kirk Hammett was anonymous as usual and I think we all wished Lars Ulrich would accept the fact that he plays the drums…
I brought my camera to the concert and have some photos on my flickr page. All photos in this post, and more, can be viewed here
