Metallica

As a casual observer, I have always thought they were at their best on the Black Album tour. I don't care for the album but the live versions of old songs in the early 90s is the best, for me. Like I say, I was casual but my mate was a big fan and had the Live Shit box set. To me, it is their peak.
 
Niall Kielt said:
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There's actually a much better quality of this (as part of the complete Florida bootleg) and it's actually kind of interesting to see since it's one of the few instances we have of Nicko playing double bass drums. The funny part is probably that it doesn't really sound or look like he has any trouble with it either.
 
When I was a teen I really loved fuck you all attitude of Metallica, and all these cursing and drinking on stage. But now when I watch these videos it looks lame and stupid for me.

I love last 10 years of Metallica, they played live almost entier discography and record it. Those bootlegs live audios of each show are better quality than some Maiden official live releases. They had a lot of projects in last few years. In some of them they loose money in some of them don't and who cares. It is not my money.

As a big Maiden fan, I would like to see a Maiden 3d movie and Maiden with Symphony. I would like to watch high quality live videos not a shitty Live Chapter production. And I would really love to see Maiden with a different set list each night. So for all these reasons I respect Metallica and hope that James will be back soon.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
FTFY.

Reload is awesome. Much better than Load, St(r)Anger and in my personal preference and frequency of listening even than Kill 'Em All and The Black Album. Okay, Slither is bad, I admit.
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Agreed, except I'd replace Slither with Bad Seed. Slither's cool.
 
I love it all. Walked several miles to the record store (yes I am old) and back to pick up Load on release day since my car broke down in the driveway as I was leaving. The walk back was awful as the anticipation was getting to me. Liked Load and Reload from day one. Also never understood the hate St. Anger got as I really enjoyed the lyrics. They remind me of someone going through some bad shit and you are reading their journal. I am glad they haven't kept on making Master Of Puppets II, III and IV.
 
Reload is not completely bereft of value, but it always struck me as mostly lame leftovers from the Load sessions with a couple of decent tracks thrown in as seasoning.

I think you could take the best tracks from those two 80-minute albums and probably come up with one pretty good 40-50 minute album from it. I wish the band had done that instead of doing a massive dump of everything they’d recorded at the time, be it good, bad, or ugly.
 
I saw the 'S&M 2' concert at the cinema on Wednesday evening. Visually it was very impressive with the band and orchestra all together on an island-style stage in the massive Chase Center. It was a more extravagant set-up than the original collaboration from twenty years ago with much more space for Metallica to mover around with paths between different parts of the orchestra. The camera angles were fantastic, particularly with close-ups of some of the musicians where you could see the levels of concentration on their faces and some amusing facial expressions.

I would divide the set up into three rough sections: the opening few songs where the songs worked well with the orchestra, an indulgent, meandering middle section and the closing few juggernaut Metallica songs.

After the orchestra opened with 'The Ecstasy of Gold' the initial quartet of Metallica songs made for a spectacular beginning to the concert. 'The Day That Never Comes' (one of my favourite songs), for example, was made even more powerful when paired with the orchestra. After the extended "la la la la" part from 'The Memory Remains' by the crowd (although not as long as Blind Guardian let 'Valhalla' continue for) the momentum and impact of the show stuttered a bit with two songs from 'Hardwired...To Self Destruct' which I don't think highly of and weren't really supplemented by the orchestra in a satisfying way. 'The Outlaw Torn' and 'No Leaf Clover' brought things back on track in style before the first act closed with 'Halo on Fire' (the only strong track from the latest album) which had a much bigger impact than 'Confusion' or 'Moth Into Flame'.

After the interval the concert took a bizarre and indulgent course. The orchestra performed a piece of music by itself and then another piece of music with Metallica - both songs with a different conductor from the rest of the concert. This was followed by 'The Unforgiven III' with only James singing with the orchestra which was pretty powerful and gave me hope that the rest of the concert might pick up again with some melodic Metallica songs. Unfortunately the set became really weird after that with an acoustic version of 'All Within My Hands' with some random dude on backing vocals and that bloody bass solo by a member of the orchestra. If they really had to play something from 'St. Anger' then couldn't it have been 'The Unnamed Feeling' instead? I know that they named their charity after 'All Within My Hands' but there is the potential, if redone properly, for 'The Unnamed Feeling' to be a great song. This part of the set just felt like a massive exercise in self-indulgence and meandered from one thing to the next with no real structure or flow. There was a massive missed opportunity, considering how well the third installment worked, to play the entire 'Unforgiven' trilogy with the orchestra but instead they veered around with no real focus.

The final five songs were some of the typical fan-favourite Metallica songs. If the orchestra had disappeared for these nobody would have noticed as James has the crowd in the palm of his hand during 'Master of Puppets' and 'Enter Sandman' Obviously these juggernauts will always be a fantastic spectacle live wherever Metallica play, with or without an orchestra, as the response from the crowd is euphoric without exception.


So overall it was an impressive spectacle as expected but a bit of a mixed bag in terms of the songs performed with some missed opportunities and self-indulgence along the way. Let's take a moment to remember that twenty years ago Metallica performed with the orchestra for the original 'S&M' then James checked into rehab shortly after and the band almost disintegrated - are we seeing history repeat itself?
 
I was also disappointed with S&M setlist. Too bad that there was no space for Devils Dance and Until is Sleeps, one of the highlights of first S&M. It is stupid to play something from St.Anger in acoustic version, I think that any song from St.Anger would sound great with the Symphony.

Imagine Maiden with Symphony:

1. Aces
2. 2 minutes
3. Wrathchild
4. Trooper
5. Heaven can wait
6. Clairvoyant
7. Evil that Man do
8. Hills
9. Wasted years
10. Blood B
11. Hallowed
12. Fear
13. Iron Maiden
14. 666
15. Sanctuary
16. Running Free

So unexpected :)
 
gazda said:
I was also disappointed with S&M setlist. Too bad that there was no space for Devils Dance and Until is Sleeps, one of the highlights of first S&M.
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I don't think there was any need to repeat what they did the first time. A repetition of the first 'S&M' would have been very disappointing.
 
gazda said:
I was also disappointed with S&M setlist. Too bad that there was no space for Devils Dance and Until is Sleeps, one of the highlights of first S&M. It is stupid to play something from St.Anger in acoustic version, I think that any song from St.Anger would sound great with the Symphony.

Imagine Maiden with Symphony:

1. Aces
2. 2 minutes
3. Wrathchild
4. Trooper
5. Heaven can wait
6. Clairvoyant
7. Evil that Man do
8. Hills
9. Wasted years
10. Blood B
11. Hallowed
12. Fear
13. Iron Maiden
14. 666
15. Sanctuary
16. Running Free

So unexpected :)
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It's been some time since I cooled off from Metallica but it's still sad news when I've found out about their canceled tour and it kind of shows what kind of huge machinery Metallica has became (I mean seeing James in S&M 2 announcing videos that started to appear after the guy went into rehab...) Also, all their other announcements and some of them are like... Stay tuned? Stay tuned for what?! Socks?!?! Oh come on, fuck off...

Anyway, when I heard the news I stumbled onto a quote in a book I was reading: You're never an ex-addict. Just an addict who hasn't had a fix in a while.
 
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