This stream started much like the predecessor from two nights prior but this time it was Tom Morello’s voice instead of Jason Momoa’s doing the introduction. Metallica’s previous set started with their oldest material and ascended through the catalog but tonight was the opposite as they started with selections from the newest album and descended in order until we ended up at Kill Em’ All. I thought they would surely play “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and I predictably did not get “The Four Horsemen” but “Am I Evil?,” “Bleeding Me” and ”Harvester of Sorrow” more than made up for this. Another rocking set with great energy from these living legends.
SETLIST: Hardwired, The End of the Line, Dirty Window, I Disappear, Am I Evil?, The Memory Remains, Fuel, Bleeding Me, Wasting My Hate, The Unforgiven, Enter Sandman, Harvester of Sorrow, Master of Puppets, Fade to Black, Whiplash, Seek & Destroy
For many reasons that we do not need to get into here I missed seeing Metallica’s two headlining sets at Aftershock in October. Then I almost purchased the pay-per-view Triller Fight Club event in November just for the Metallica livestream portion but decided against it because I ended up having something else going that night. As such it was a more than welcome sight to see that Metallica would be broadcasting both of their weekend performances from San Francisco to celebrate 40 years together. Even better is the fact that these livestreams would be free since I already subscribe to Amazon Prime!
A video of AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll)” quickly morphed into a Metallica video montage before the band ripped through “Hit the Lights.” After this the band spanned their entire discography for this 16 song set and the band was firing on all cylinders throughout. “Orion” was a highlight for me as I had not ever seen this played live. “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Master of Puppets” and “Enter Sandman” were notably missing from this set so these will certainly be played during Part II on Sunday but what else will they play?
SETLIST: Hit the Lights, Creeping Death, Trapped Under Ice, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Orion, The Shortest Straw, One, Sad But True, Nothing Else Matters, King Nothing, Fixxxer, Breadfan, No Leaf Clover, Frantic, The Day That Never Comes, Spit Out the Bone
This was a star studded free livestream to honor the career of Alice In Chains and raise money for the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, also known locally as EMP or Experience Music Project as it was originally named. After 10 minutes of messing around with trying to get the feed it finally kicked on with Alice In Chains in the middle of performing “Your Decision.” Observations from the two and a half hour event:
Jerry Cantrell reprised his role as Nona from back in the day when they did the Nona Tapes! This was awesome because I had the original home video on VHS back in the day.
Mike McCready made a brief appearance doing the opening riff of “It Ain’t Like That” that made me want to hear the whole song but no dice.
Ann Wilson sang “Rooster” spliced with old Alice In Chains footage with Layne. She has an amazing voice but I just wasn’t feeling her version.
Corey Taylor, Dave Navarro and Taylor Hawkins did a performance of “Man In the Box” with current Jane’s Addiction bass player Chris Chaney. Some might say Corey was making the song his own with the vocals but to me it sounded like he was just struggling to imitate Layne. This is coming from a guy that loves Corey Taylor so no disrespect to him but after hearing two great singers do Alice In Chains songs it just made me appreciate how incredibly unique and talented Layne was even more. At this point I realized I was in for a long night.
Duff McKagan and Shooter Jennings did a pretty rad version of “Down In a Hole” with Duff impressively playing all the instruments except lead guitar. This is such a powerful song and they captured the overall mood perfectly.
Korn did an admirable job covering “Would?” but cover songs are a strange beast to me. I love Korn but feel like you either need to absolutely fucking nail it, make it way different or make it better in some way and this did not do any of those things for me.
Mark Lanegan and his backing band of misfits including Nancy Wilson covered “Brother” and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I just got done reading Lanegan’s book and I could tell he was giving an inspired performance for his fallen friend.
Fishbone did a cover of “Them Bones” with horns and all and it was awesome. They definitely made this song their own but kept the bones of the song intact (pun intended).
MoPOP has a contest for local talent called Sound Off and at this point the program featured a handful of gifted artists doing various bits of Alice In Chains songs.
An artist named Liv Warfield did a cover of “Put You Down” that was respectable. It is always nice to hear women in rock.
Mastodon covered “Again” and the music part was on point but again I just was not digging the vocals.
Kim Thayil made an appearance with a group of people I did not recognize doing a full-length version of “It Ain’t Like That,” which finally quieted my brain after the teaser Mike McCready threw out at the top of the program.
Kim Thayil and Krist Novoselic doing “Drone” with two female singers was right up there as the highlight of the whole thing for me. It simply sounded great.
Weirdo extraordinaire Les Claypool made a cameo doing a crazy partial bass solo version of “Man In the Box” that was pretty cool.
Lily Cornell Silver (daughter of Chris Cornell and Susan Silver) made her professional music performance debut playing piano and singing the beautifully haunting “Black Gives Way to Blue” with Queensryche’s Chris DeGarmo accompanying her on acoustic guitar and she killed it. I guess it does not hurt to have great genes.
Mark Lanegan made a second appearance doing “Nutshell,” which I did not enjoy as much as his first act but still liked nonetheless.
Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd did “Angry Chair” with Tad Doyle singing and it stirred the same emotions in me as the Mastodon cover did: musically it was great but Tad’s vocals just were not doing it for me. Mike McCready showed up again during this just long enough to lay down a scorching one-two punch solo with Kim.
Billy Corgan did a stark rendition of “Check My Brain” alone with an acoustic guitar. I love Billy but if you have read this far then you know his voice was definitely out of its element here.
Metallica was one of the most anticipated performances of the night but when they finally appeared doing a partial acoustic version of “Would?” (that had already been done by Korn) it was a little disappointing.
The grand finale was Alice In Chains doing “No Excuses” and it was a nice ending to a really magnificent evening.
It is noteworthy that it was free to watch the event but money was being raised through donations. While this was nice it was also disheartening to see the tally of money raised at a paltry amount even as we neared the end of the broadcast. They could have raised way more money if they had just charged something in the first place. Since most of the other streams I have been watching average $15 for a ticket I made a donation in that amount because music is important and MoPOP is doing good work for the community and the arts in general.
An entire acoustic Metallica concert? It sounded just weird enough to work and let’s be honest with no in-person live music to experience this was also a another much needed concert alternative. What made this livestream different from the start was the fact that they were raising money for the charity they started called All Within My Hands. Pretty cool.
After 30 minutes of promos for the charity they unveiled the Metallica HQ setup where they would be performing. The band was surrounded by four video walls divided into several hexagons that projected live video of folks who were willing to cough up some extra dough to essentially be there in the room. The band was very interactive with the people on the walls so for some of these lucky people the extra money was well spent.
They started out with a severely reworked acoustic version of “Blackened,” which pretty much set the tone for how a majority of their songs would translate to an acoustic treatment. I must say I have never seen anyone shred on a 12 string acoustic guitar like Kirk Hammet did during “The Unforgiven.” Wow. “Nothing Else Matters” was predictably the song that sounded most similar to the regular version and by no means was that a bad thing. A touching moment was when Lars & James brought in their sons to play percussion for “All Within My Hands” from St. Anger.
After a short intermission they ditched the acoustic instruments to play an electric batch of songs. Continuing on the theme of weird was a version of “Disposable Heroes” that was barely recognizable and an awesome version of “House of the Rising Sun.” A Metallica album that does not get enough credit is Load so it was great to see a balls-out showing of “Wasting My Hate.” Despite “Enter Sandman” being played so much during its peak I’ll be damned if I do not get riled up during the rare time when I do hear it so this was a fitting way to end the show.
SETLIST: Blackened, Creeping Death, When a Blind Man Cries, The Unforgiven, Now That We’re Dead, Turn the Page, Nothing Else Matters, All Within My Hands, Disposable Heroes, House of the Rising Sun, Waste My Hate, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Master of Puppets, Enter Sandman
So it seems I am on the see Metallica every 10 years train because the last time I saw them was at the KROQ Weenie Roast back in 2008 and the time before that was Lollapalooza 1996 at the Gorge. I caught wind of a presale after they announced a stop at Petco Park in support of their newest album Hardwired…To Self Destruct that was released on 11/18/16. I could have bought seats anywhere in the place with the presale but decided to buy reasonable seats to save a little coin since I had seen them up close at the Gorge. Bob text me months later asking if I would rather be on the floor. Of course I would but did not want to double the price. He apparently worked some magic and found floor tickets for the same price so I sold the two tickets I purchased to our friend Kyle.
At the last minute Larry and Meredith decided they wanted to go and found some tickets. After meeting at my place and blowing Meredith’s mind that you could get away with drinking in an Uber we met up with Larry’s cousin, Kyle and his friend at a place downtown adjacent to the ballpark called Rare Form for a couple beers. Everything was going swimmingly until we went to go in and learned that Larry and Meredith had paid $145 each for fake tickets and would not be coming in. Talk about a buzz kill. To make matters worse I had somehow dropped the doobie I had in my pocket on the ground when I was taking everything out of my pockets to prepare for the metal detector.
Once inside things quickly took a turn for the better as some random guy offered me a high powered cannabis “gummy” for reasons still unbeknownst to me. We had just enough time to grab a beer and wander onto the floor section before Metallica started (yes we skipped all opening bands including Avenged Sevenfold for which I harbor a particular disdain for). It felt like the show was sold out but we still had plenty of space around us to be comfortable and move about the floor. Their giant stage backed with equally impressive projection screens was the largest I think I have ever seen and this ranks as one of if not the loudest concerts I have ever been to. I quickly realized that there was a colossal difference between seeing them headline their own tour versus playing on a festival bill like I had the other two times. A spectacular pyrotechnics and laser display worked in unison with the projected images to accompany the music to epic effect. The band genuinely seemed to be enjoying the night and (as one would expect) was tight. In a nod to Cliff Burton, Robert nailed his “Anesthesia” bass solo as images of Cliff were projected onto the screens. The new stuff was good but the old stuff just flat out rocked. What a fitting grand finale of three concerts in four days…Wow. These guys at whatever age they are still crush it.
SETLIST: Hardwired, Atlas, Rise!, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Creeping Death, The Unforgiven, Now That We’re Dead, Moth Into Flame, Wherever I May Roam, Halo On Fire, Whiplash, Sad But True, One, Master of Puppets, Fade to Black, Seek & Destroy, Fight Fire With Fire, Nothing Else Matters, Enter Sandman
The KROQ Weenie Roast is an annual multi-artist music concert hosted by L.A.’s biggest rock station KROQ that was held at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater up until it was demolished in 2016. This was the first time Marvin, Bob, Bob’s then girlfriend or I had ever been to the now defunct cookie-cutter amphitheater. I did not have a ticket but Marvin has his ways and found me a ticket in the parking lot.
Ticket secured and however many beers later we walked in at the top of the hill to a band playing that looked like it was being fronted by a dark hairy mass with a guitar that resembled Kim Thayil from Soundgarden. Just as I was laughing with the boys about this I realized that the frontman was a beard clad Daron Malakian from System of a Down. I did not know the songs because Scars on Broadway were still a couple of months away from releasing their eponymous album but I was instantly hooked, especially once I saw his brother from System of a Down John Dalmayan drumming behind him.
Apparently we missed MGMT on the second stage but that is because none of us knew who they were yet. Seether was next on the main stage and I had literally seen them a month before this. No complaints here as they were just as rocking during the daylight hours as they were headlining their own show in the darkness.
The Raconteurs were touring for their newest effort Consolers of the Lonely that was released about two months before this. I had the pleasure of seeing them one other time in a tiny place after the first album (see The Raconteurs 7/19/06) and was more than ecstatic to see the new songs performed live. Jack White = Guitar God.
Apparently the only time I saw The Offspring about seven years prior to this was not long before they took a little hiatus, but now they were back to promote the album Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace that was about to be released. We did get a teaser of the new album less than two weeks before this show with the release of the single “Hammerhead.” Solid setlist, solid performance and so much energy that even the crowd in the very steep lawn section got moving. This was the first time I saw bonfires break out in the lawn section if that gives any indication of how rowdy the crowd was. If that’s not rock n’ roll then I don’t know what is.
SETLIST: Come Out and Play, The Kids Aren’t Alright, Hammerhead, All I Want, Gone Away, Staring at the Sun, Gotta Get Away, Want You Bad, You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid, Bad Habit, Pretty Fly (For a White Guy), (Can’t Get My) Head Around You, Self Esteem
We were still about four months away from the release of Death Magnetic at the time of this show and I had not seen Metallica since the very first time I saw them over 12 years prior at Lollapalooza 1996. Both the show and upcoming album marked the introduction of bassist Robert Trujillo but Metallica avoided playing any new material. This was a set of balls-to-the-wall epic Metallica classics and they looked happy to be out of the confines of the studio and back onto a stage.
SETLIST: Creeping Death, Fuel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Unforgiven, Wherever I May Roam, Harvester of Sorrow, The Memory Remains, Fade to Black, Master of Puppets, Battery, Sad but True, One, Enter Sandman, So What, Seek & Destroy
My uncle Darryl informed me one week before graduation that I would have to move out. I ended up moving in with Jack, my best friend at the time, because he was also in a situation with nowhere to live. I started working full time at Super Lube and he got a job at the local car wash. We moved in and quickly realized we didn’t have any furnishings. With a little help from a lot of people we were set up. A lot of debauchery went down at that townhouse because for the first time our group of friends had somewhere proper to party. Before this we partied a lot of at different outdoor locations or house parties, but those weren’t the norm. That summer was the first time I ever took LSD and I took it frequently. I was curious about it long before I did it and read everything I could get my hands on pertaining to it. It didn’t help that my friend Ross lived with a drug dealer and gave me about 100 hits to sell. I’m no drug dealer so what ended up happening was my friends and I would get bored with nothing to do so we did it. I never took more than 2 hits at a time because I had heard about people who took too much and thought they were an orange and everyone was trying to peel them, etc. That summer was also the only time I have ever smoked Opium, the first time I had Hash and there were plenty of Mushroom trips as well. I know this sounds really bad but I never strayed so far from myself that I couldn’t come back and I always made it to work and paid my bills as well. I viewed these experiences as mind expanding and still do. I learned many important life lessons that summer.
Anyways Lollapalooza’s lineup this year included Devo, The Ramones, Screaming Trees, Soundgarden and the almighty Metallica, all of whom I had never seen. I am not really a Devo fan but it was comical to see them all dressed in yellow pleather with silly hats. I am also not a big Ramones fan but I do appreciate their place in Rock N’ Roll and feel lucky to have seen them one week before their last performance ever. The real draws for me were Soundgarden and Metallica. I became a Soundgarden fan after hearing “Outshined.” I borrowed the Badmotorfinger album from my friend Claude and must have played it about a thousand times. I remember they opened with “Spoonman.” They had just released Down on the Upside a couple months before this show but aside from “Pretty Noose” and “Ty Cobb” their setlist was compiled from Badmotorfinger and Superunknown, with the exception of a cover of “Waiting for the Sun” by the Doors as the sun was setting behind them. Amazing. Chris Cornell played “Black Hole Sun” by himself acoustically, which was also pretty amazing. Ben looked pretty pissed off the whole time. The set came to a close with a fierce version of “Jesus Christ Pose.” This is another band I feel very lucky to have seen because they broke up less than a year later. I was blown away and I still had Metallica to look forward to. I had been turned onto them with the album …And Justice for All by my friend John. That is still my favorite Metallica album. After getting into that one I bought every Metallica album in existence. On this tour they were promoting Load, which had just come out less than a few months prior. I don’t remember them playing much if anything from this album. I do remember them rocking my ass off with all the classics.
