Metallica Delivers a Metal Show for the Ages at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA

Metallica – Gillette Stadium – Foxborough, Massachusetts – May 19, 2017

Metallica certainly has achieved far more than either James Hetfield or Lars Ulrich could have ever imagined possible back when the pair first met in Los Angeles nearly four decades ago. Dreams of opening up for a main stream hard rock or metal act at the Rainbow or the Whiskey were likely the loftiest goals the duo ever initially set their aims on.

Okay for the record, Ulrich was probably contemplating world metal domination back when he and Hetfield would hang out in his boyhood bedroom listening to some of their early musical heroes such as Diamond Head, Angel Witch, Tygers of Pan Tang, Blitzkrieg and Venom.

However, barring getting a hold of Wonder Woman’s truth lasso, tying Ulrich to a chair with it and interrogating him, I seriously doubt that even the boisterous drummer would admit that he thought the band would go on to become the most dominant and driving force in all of hard rock and heavy metal for close to forty years now.

Metallica’s first three records, Kill ‘Em All, Ride The Lighting and Master of Puppets defined the thrash music landscape while creating the blue print countless musicians would use to fuel their own bands’ metal music dreams.

Although the band themselves has decried their fourth studio release, And Justice for All, as being overwrought, Metallica broke new ground with the record in terms of bridging metal music to the mainstream with the video for the transcendent track off the record, “One.”

Whether it was Metallica’s intent or not, the video not only would become the first salvo in terms of launching Metallica as a global music phenomenon, it paved the way for metal music to secure its rightful place in the mainstream universe of MTV and traditional terrestrial radio.

Many members of band’s hard core fan base may have been taken aback by their full on shift away from the hard core sound that had propelled them to fame with the release of the self titled Metallica, popularly known at the Black Album, back in 1991.

However, not only did the record cement the band as kings of the hard rock and metal universe, it also was genre defining in terms of how much of an impact their moving away from the speed and thrash world would ultimately have on metal music as a whole.

Any band that is more than three decades into their career are bound to have some missteps along the way and Metallica has had more than their fair share of maladies both personally and professionally.

On the professional side of the spectrum no one is ever going to bury copies of Load, Reload, St. Anger, or Death Magnetic in a time capsule so some high school kids in Escondido, California in the year 3017 can open it up to hear what “metal” music sounded like during this age.

It’s also a safe assumption to make that many Metallica fans, especially the die-hard crowd who jumped on board with the band in the 1980’s, would be perfectly okay with those records, along with the ill-fated Lou Reed collaboration, Lulu, being buried three to four hundred feet under the ground for all of eternity.

Personally the band has also endured more than a few trials and tribulations, many of which likely would have caused most outfits of Metallica’s caliber to simply call it quits long ago.

The movie Some Kind of Monster provides a brilliant window into the degree of Metallica’s dysfunction as a band, and as human beings, by the time they had reached the early 2000’s.

The film also goes a long way towards explaining why Metallica began to produce material not quite on par with their early career work and why even the band’s live performances during this period suffered.

If anything rock and roll is about emotional ebbs and flows and unlike any other profession, it not only welcomes, it encourages spectacular rises to fame and glory as well as disastrous falls from the mountain top. Rock music and its millions of fans also warmly embrace musical stories of redemption and triumph.

Should anyone question whether or not Metallica has turned the worm on their career yet again, perhaps you should pick up and listen to their new record Hard Wired to Self Destruct.

Taking in one of the Metallica’s surreal and beyond sensory deafening live performances they’re currently putting on these days as part of their ongoing World Wired tour would also be advised.

Whether or not you’re enjoy the band’s music you’d be hard pressed to walk away from one of Metallica’s concerts on this current tour cycle without thinking something along the lines of, “that was pretty damn amazing.”

Hetfield, Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo brought the metal music mayhem to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts this past Friday night to play on the field that Tom Brady and the world champion New England Patriots call home.

Along with a production that included stadium spanning 100-foot video screens, a stage that served as three stages in one, as well as a pyro technic and laser light display that would have even scared King Kong or at the very least that alien from the end of the movie Prometheus off, Metallica announced to all of their New England fan base, they’re back.

Despite all the bells and whistles that are a part of the World Wired live experience and the fact that the band was playing to over 60,000 screaming metal crazies, the beauty in the performance may have lied in the simple fact that it didn’t come off as bloated, instead the concert felt deeply personal from the first note played to the last note strummed.

Even though Metallica chose to start the night’s musical festivities off with two songs from their new record, “Hardwired” and “Atlas Rise!,” the entirely of the crowd was in lock step with the quartet from the jump.

Metallica should be given credit for not only playing these new songs live but for challenging themselves as musicians in doing so. The technical aspects tied to Hard Wired to Self Destruct are beyond reproach, thus the difficulty in terms of playing the Hardwired material in a live setting, let alone to crowds in the tens of thousands, would be daunting enough.

The fact that the band executed these tracks flawlessly while also managing to keep the fans beyond engaged is a testament to not only the quality of the new material, but living proof that the four members that make up Metallica are some of the most gifted musicians on Earth.

There were so many transcendent moments from Metallica’s 18-song set at Gillette Stadium it would take another thousand words to give each and every one of them their proper due.

311 UNITY TOUR 2016

“Master of Puppets,” with the classic Metallica graveyard imagery and massive puppeteer strings dangling over Ulrich’s drum kit, Hetfield’s evocative and spine tingling vocals on “The Unforgiven,” Trujillo’s homage to late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton in the form of his take on “(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth” while images of Burton dotted the gigantic video screens, Hammett’s many jaw dropping guitar solos or the wave of sky high fireworks explosions and dancing flames that preceded the band’s performance of “One,” were all but just a few of the many high points tied to the evening’s performance.

As for any noteworthy nods or dedications tied to Soundgarden and Audioslave’s front man Chris Cornell, during Trujillo’s bass solo the bassist played several bars of “Black Hole Sun,” while at the very end of the “Unforgiven” Hetfield uttered these four simple words, “We forgive you Chris.”

The band closed out their initial set by coming together at the top of the mini-stage, in what Hetfield termed an attempt at, “Trying to recreate the garage they played in as teenagers,” to perform what would turn out to be a stadium wide sing-a-long of one of Metallica’s most revered songs, “Seek and Destroy.”

The moment came off not only as beyond genuine it also served to remind those in the audience exactly why they have been serving at the alter of Metallica for these oh so many years, the band is just flat out fucking good.

Metallica has always shared a symbiotic connection with their fan base that can be traced back to the days when they would play songs such as “Motorbreath” and “Hit the Lights” to rooms of about two hundred mostly unemployed, in a need of shower, metal heads.

By the time Metallica came back to the stage to perform the final three song encore of “Fight Fire with Fire,” “Nothing Else Matters” and “Battery,” each and every last fan still in attendance likely felt more connected to the band than they’ve ever have.

Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett and Trujillo seamlessly made these connections that much stronger by simply getting up on that massive stage, having a ton of laughs, sharing personal moments with one another, as well as more than a few with fans directly and by delivering a bone jarring and sublime performance that if had to be described by only a singular word, that word be metal!

Something that was impossible not to take notice of was the sheer number of parents that brought their young or millennial age children to see Metallica perform. Considering the band hasn’t toured the United States extensively in close to a decade, anyone present that was born after 2007 was likely taking in their first ever Metallica show.

Thus the most relevant take away from the night may be the fact that through their mere performance alone it’s entirely possible the band may have just inspired countless youngsters to form this generation’s Motörhead, Slayer or even the next Metallica.

That proclamation may come off across as a tad bit unrealistic to some but if a 13-year old Ulrich were in the audience this past Friday, having never seen or heard Metallica himself, he’d likely turn to one of his friends at the conclusion of the concert and say something along the lines of, “Yeah that was pretty good but our band is going to be way bigger than those guys.”