At Long Last My Metallica Post

December 17, 2008. The Forum. Metallica. Incredible.

We had better seats this time. (We were there 10 days earlier for AC/DC). We walked in the arena and were totally disconcerted because there was no end stage. There was a giant flat stage in the center. Three drumsets, one veiled in black.

The first band, with the smallest drumset, was The Sword. They were loud. Someone diagonal from us was complaining, "Your songs all sound the same. Play something that's not in 4/4." Frank said they did play something in 12/8, so there!

The second band had the big drumset up on risers. They were even louder. Their bass player had huge tattooed arms. He looked a little like a friend from high school. (Family members? Imagine Tom I. with long long hair.) I forgot their name. I was too busy looking at the activity in the pit...the whole floor area was a giant mosh pit. What we first thought was a fight turned out to be some fat guys walking in a circle and bumping each other. Someone tried to crowd surf, but fell down. This band replaced Lamb of God, who were "unceremoniously dumped from the tour," according to their replacements. The HH told me it was because the Forum is owned by a church. (Anyhoo, Lamb of God played the Ventura Theater on Friday night. See Frank's footnote.)

Then they cleared the extraneous equipment from the stage and we waited for Metallica. Lars Ullrich's unveiled drum set was not that big. It's not the size of the equipment, it's what you can do with it.

Their set started off with lasers, and just got better. Lights, smoke, fire etc. But most importantly, great music. We only own one Metallica album (the black one, of course, which has been played a lot) so I confess I'm not too familiar with the rest of their songs. The newest CD seems to live in Frank's car and I don't think I've even heard it yet. It didn't matter.

What really impressed me was how much James Hot and Sexy Hetfield interacted with the audience. And on behalf of the whole band, how much they appreciated their fans. "Is this your first Metallica show? We must be doing something right." ... "Have you seen Metallica before? We must be doing something right." ...and referring to the audience as "the fifth member of the band." All the mobile members moved back and forth across the stage, and Lars was on a rotating platform.

The pit was a living organism, a cell full of arm-waving cilia and belly bumping organelles. Crowd sufing mitochondria? (Hey, it's been years since I took biology so cut me some slack here.)

Truly, this was one of the best concerts EVVVVERRRRRR.




Frank's Footnote. Not really his, it's still me. He saw Lamb of God at the Ventura Theater on Friday. He said it was a great show. Lots of action in the pit...apparently the pit divided into two groups and ran into each other. The skinny guys lost. Frank exhibited a mature level of common sense and stayed up a level. He says he got home at 1 a.m and took a shower to get rid of "the man smell." OK.