A while ago, I found out I would have the chance to see Metallica live. I know I’m not the only one who feels that seeing Metallica live is on the bucket list. One of my closest friends’ mom works for the ticket office at Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech. She was able to score some tickets for me and some friends.Obviously, first impressions were along the lines of “OMG I’m actually going to see them.”
Upon arriving, we sat in semi-nosebleed seats and Pantera played as openers. About two songs into Metallica’s set, my friend’s mom informs us to come to section 110 because she was able to acquire fourth row seats for all of us. We hustled down and lo and behold there we were in the fourth row. We were close enough not only to actually see the performers but to even see their facial expressions.
They opened with “Creeping Death,” most known for the iconic bridge and live background vocals in 1988 or so by Jason Newsted. While they did not include “die motherf—er die” in the performance, I still think it was a great choice to open with.
The next song they played was one of my personal favorites, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” from my all-time favorite album, “Ride the Lightning.” I cannot begin to describe my excitement upon hearing this song live.
Halfway through the show, they played a couple songs from the new “72 Seasons” album. As good as they were, I was sadly unfamiliar with them. Following those, Robert Trujillo and Kirk Hammett performed a small jam.
They introduced the song as a jam from the previous night and that they were nervous to perform it. They proceeded to play a lively metal piece with BPM changes and such. If they decide to make anything out of it, I look forward to hearing it
The band performed a haunting rendition of “Nothing Else Matters” that blew me away. This song is on I like to play and the solo is one of my personal favorites. It is one I tend to play when just messing around on my guitar. It was moving to hear live, as was “One.”
After a false exit, the band played “Enter Sandman.” Virginia Tech is famous for using the song as an entrance for their football team. During this performance, 60,000 excited fans in the stadium created so much commotion and excitement that, using the Richter scale, a 1.5 magnitude tremor was measured according to Sports Illustrated.
— dj dragonfly
