Metallica

New Rolling Stone article lists top 50 concerts (or tours) of all time. Of course Metallica is the only metal band listed. Here is what they said:

"In 1988, Metallica released their pivotal album … And Justice for All and went from thrash-metal renegades to mainstream stars. But when their manager suggested an arena tour to support the LP, the band wasn't convinced. "I was like, 'Seriously?'" drummer Lars Ulrich recalls. "We knew we could do L.A., New York, San Francisco, but the American heartland didn't seem like a great idea. No band as extreme as ours had ever done a full arena tour. So we used Indianapolis as a yardstick. If we were cool there, we were cool almost anywhere. When the tickets went on sale in Indianapolis, we ended up doing 13,000 or 14,000, which in 1988 was an insane victory."

On the Damaged Justice Tour, Metallica learned just how many authenticity-starved headbangers were really out there. The band got the first taste of its transformative power in the summer of 1988 when it was booked onto the Monsters of Rock Tour, opening for Van Halen and Scorpions. At the L.A. Coliseum, fans responded to Metallica's set by flinging their folding chairs at the stage to create a football-field-size mosh pit. "It was bonkers," says bassist Jason Newsted, who had recently joined the band, replacing the late Cliff Burton. "For a kid coming off a farm and jumping into my favorite band, it was very dreamy. I didn't sleep. Every day was another dream coming true." He also got a lesson in how to conduct himself on the road. "I'd walk on the crew bus of a big band and there's a pile of blow on the table in the front lounge," Newsted recalls. "I look over there at my heroes, all red and swollen, and I'm like, 'Guess what I'm not gonna do? That!'" The kickoff of the Damaged Justice Tour coincided with the success of Metallica's anti-war-themed video for their new single, "One," which quickly became an MTV hit. At the peak of bloated hair metal, Metallica were playing jagged seven-to-nine-minute-long thrash odysseys. But the crowds at their shows kept growing. "The kids know that at the end of the day there's something very real and honest about what we do," Ulrich told Rolling Stone in 1989. "You can't take that away from us." K.G. "

I saw the Monsters of Rock tour (both Houston and Dallas shows). I wonder which band Jason was talking about with the mountain of coke on the bus: VH (does not sound like Sammy), Scorpions, or Dokken?
 
Work still in progress...


Some embarrassing fails right there (Lars and Kirk) but I hope they'll figure it out.
 
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