Wow!  Wow!  Wow! (videos are at the bottom of this entry)

   

What an amazing concert.  I was having flashbacks to my teen years to when I would listen to Metallica with friends on our way to farm jobs.  Never would I have thought that 15 years later, I would be close enough to read their tattoos.  My ears are still ringing!

The Good:

• Second row aisle seat – so close I could read their tattoos – epic! (all for $65!) Could..almost…touch…the gods of rock…
• It was Metallica as you’ve always known them.  About half the songs they played were classics – and they played them really well. So well done that I pulled out my old CD’s to listen to them again.  Here’s the set list:
  01. That Was Just Your Life
  02. The End Of The Line
  03. For Whom The Bell Tolls
  04. Ride The Lightning
  05. One
  06. Broken, Beat And Scarred
  07. Cyanide
  08. Sad But True
  09. …And Justice For All
  10. No Remorse
  11. The Day That Never Comes
  12. Master Of Puppets
  13. Fight Fire With Fire
  14. Nothing Else Matters
  15. Enter Sandman
  – – -Encore- – – – –
  16. Last Caress
  17. Stone Cold Crazy
  19. Seek and Destroy
• Energy of the concert was amazing – crowd was great, fire effects were great, lighting and stage was really well done.
• Next day you can download your show! – Go here to download all the individual mp3’s of any concert for $10
• No ‘front’ stage – they all moved around the stage and played at different locations.  So there wasn’t a bad front seat anywhere in the front – very well executed, even had a rotating drum set.  I had each of the band members right in front of me at one point.
• Surrounded by VIPs – I think the reason I got my amazing ticket was it was an unused VIP ticket that opened at noon the day before the concert.  I was surrounded by people with VIP and ‘band pass’ badges. Was that just Hetfield’s wife I saw?  No, really…

The Ugly:  Crowd control – the two guards in charge of our section fail miserably.

• There was a small mosh/GA area below stage level in front of us.  About 1/2 way through the concert in a 5 minute span, about 5-10 people started individually rushing and jumping the fence in our section.  It got bad enough at one point I really feared a general rush/riot might be coming.  People were tackled by guards, idiots refused to take being thrown out like men.  Fortunately the staff popped over with a bunch of bouncers and got things under control – but it ruined two songs while the local theatrics were attended to.

The Priceless:

• 2 old rockers that were clearly not all there (about 40-50, and looked like Ozzie clones) decided to light up huge blunties – only 2 seconds later to realize they were standing right by the guards.  Bye bye guys. 🙂
• The lower mosh/GA area – the most violent offender award goes to a girl in 80’s pink shorts and yellow tank top.  Man, guards had to come in twice and calm her down.
• Friend of mine was up in 300 level – and when a guy got caught toking up, instead of getting caught – flicked the bluntie over the wall to the crowd below.  Somebody down below either got an early christmas present, or a roach burn. 🙂
• The fellows that jumped the railing, then got owned by the mosh guards.

The Awesome:
Wanna see how a concert is from the front?  Here’s clips from a guy using camera video that was sitting right near me.  I gave him my email and he was good enough to give me copies.  Thanks man!

For Whom the Bell Tolls:

Ride the Lightning:

One:

Nothing Else Matters:

(Movies are AVI)