Apr 27, 2023
“NO, NO, NO…” James Hetfield roars as “King Nothing” pulverizes the Johan Cruijff ArenA. He’s at the lowest point of the stage when he shakes his head in disbelief and softly mouths, “Holy shit!” It’s an overwhelmed, excited, possibly relieved, but most definitely charged “holy shit,” the sort of “holy shit” people exclaim when they are enjoying a surge of raw, positive emotion.
“We want our shows to be the best… we’re fans too!” James had said when speaking with Zane Lowe from Apple Music the night before this first show on the (gargantuan) M72 World Tour, a comment he volunteered without a moment’s thought when Lowe asked about the pressure of fan expectations of the band’s live events.
And it’s fair to say that, here, on King’s Day in the Netherlands, Metallica most certainly hit the ground running with energy, fortitude, and tightness on a stage which it is fair to say was one of – if not the – the most ambitious the band have ever attempted in their 42 years. No one knew what to expect, as is generally the way when a tour starts, but the result was seamless.
Smooth.
Easy.
Even effortless.Such is the magic of disguise, an experienced crew comprised of brilliant professionals from truck drivers to production managers, and some of the longest working hours you could possibly (not even) imagine. For this M72 event to come alive, from concept to tonight’s birth, has been a 28-hour-a-day, 10-day-a-week affair.
For this “club gig within an arena gig within a stadium gig” to scream into ecstatically bright, loud life has challenged every aspect of the Metallica organization.
I laugh when people question whether this band might be, errr, thinking of “winding down.”
You know that phrase “go big or go home?” Put it this way, with M72, Metallica decided (broadly speaking) to not just go big but to plan on stretching it out the next 2 years.
Yeah. A little fucking more than “going big.”
Of course, to properly gauge what I’m talking about, indeed, what some of you saw tonight, you must imagine what the band did on the first day we arrived on April 19.
Photo Credit: Steffan Chirazi
A huge stadium with some partially built towers, a whale-sized stage, its bright yellowness screaming loudly through the frigid air, literally tons and tons of hardware, cables, and steel piled up or scattered across the floor, cranes and other industrial vehicles on the floor, and that large set of aforementioned incredibly dedicated men and women building what would be the M72 stage, but which at that point looked like the construction site it was…
Frankly, I was not sure how this could be pulled off.
I tried to imagine how the band would connect, where they would go, and how they would “feel” it. And then there were the logistical issues of four drum kits, all on under-stage risers, making sure they worked, making sure other band members realized when a drum “pit” was open, being careful not to get swallowed up by the “drum jaws” as they coughed up the yellow kits.
Add to that the fact that the humans still had to play their parts.
Jimmy, Lars’ drum tech, had gone from maintaining one to two drum kits per night to watching over four. Four! I wanted to laugh, but such cruelty would be the providence of bastards. Besides, I really felt for him. How was he going to get to all four points? How about the maintenance of FOUR kits in ONE show? Ditto, I found myself thinking a lot about the other techs, Zach, Justin, and Chad, who were all now having to have eyes and ears on four very different areas of a stage so large that the entire 40th Anniversary arena show could fit within the Snake Pit? It isn’t as easy as “well, they can just gently jog around the pit, right?” There are security and crew watching over the tech aspects of the show. Then, there are blind spots that cannot always be seen. Then there’s the simple fact that you can’t fucking jog with an expensive instrument in your hands! Of course, wills and ways win out, but not before much thought and extra effort take place…
The following days were spent making adjustments to many aspects of the physical production. Every time a potential problem was served, the production team found an answer. In the tennis match of last-minute issues, even if it looked like Team Problem would serve out and win a game. Even if they went 40-love, Team Production would rally and smash it right back for the victory every time. If you see any of the crew at a gig on the M72 World Tour, please… thank them. Not only do they deserve it, but they’d also appreciate it. And they deserve it…did I already say that? Not enough times to be honest…
The band was equally locked in.
Consider the necessary work from their perspectives.
Their “playground,” as James described it to Zane Lowe in that forthcoming Apple Music interview, takes learning if you’re the artist. The exuberance of your moment, the rush of, say, “Ride the Lightning” or “If Darkness Had a Son,” explodes the serotonin in your soul, which on a new stage the size of the 101 freeway, can mean you don’t see a set of steps… you don’t see those drum jaws… perhaps you even miss a sharp ramp descent. You need to learn the road conditions and the direction of traffic to allow you to enjoy the creative magic without hurting yourself. And that takes attention. There’s also the matter of figuring out how to keep that live chemistry wherever you are and to ensure you all find each other to charge it. This is a band that has always relied on you. There are batteries everywhere, as no band member walks anywhere where there aren’t thousands upon thousands of fans around them. I suspect this aspect of the design is the single most important thing to Lars, James, Kirk, and Rob, that even if the energy flags a bit, your faces everywhere and anywhere, roaring and cheering, give them the extra oomph necessary…Photo Credit: Steffan Chirazi
Then there’s the music. Yes… the notes that are the reason we’re all here. Over the days between April 19 and tonight, they ran one full set (remember there are two!), played specific songs and areas which they felt needed finer tuning, and dialed in the sound. Greg Fidelman has been out here to help with this, and James said that having Greg’s ‘fifth set of ears was a great comfort’ to everyone. Such things matter greatly. Routines. Stretches. Having your producer there to have your back sound-wise. Controlling what you can control in a situation which – let’s face it – has a lot of uncontrollable elements once the lights go down. Again, do not be fooled by these “rock stars swanning into their mega-gigs.” They put in the hard hours in the low lights, they prepare immaculately (from diet to their daily stretching and exercise routines), and they do not set foot on any stage without having road-tested it as much as humanly possible from the first moment they see it. In 2023, there are no big parties or hours upon hours of recreational activities. There is M72. There is a service to the master that is Metallica. Bigger in physical form than it’s ever been on tour, which requires bigger sacrifices from all four band members. If there’s spare time in 2023, it should be used to recover, rejuvenate, tweak, and polish. The results speak for themselves…
From the moment the first notes of “Orion” introduced the M72 World Tour, it was clear that all the preparation the band had done would pay off. Lithe, lean, taut, and determined, to open a show of this relative importance with a song carrying such gorgeous power and complexity showed that this band still likes to double down on challenging themselves. Heading into “Bellz” and an aggressive “Holier Than Thou,” it was something of a relief to see the band make the ginormous stage seem, well, not quite so ginormous. At times, it played out like a conventional U.S. arena, and the fear I had of four band members never being able to connect with each other, come together, or even find each other for a quick jam dissipated.
The first time a new drum kit popped up out of those jaws was as if this sort of thing had been happening on Metallica stages for years. Looking at Lars as he absolutely pummeled “Lux Æterna,” it was clear he was expending a little more than just excitable energy; the moment had passed without a glitch, and Lars was bathing in the relief of it all to my eye. Like everyone, he’d been a little nervous before the show, yet he was on it, pockets deep, dancing around the yellow kits with the fervor of a kid who just got a brand-new Christmas present.
Photo Credit: Ross Halfin
Indeed, as this M72 behemoth stormed on, it hardly felt like three and a half years since the WorldWired tour ended, and it certainly didn’t feel like the beginning of a tour. When James roared, “How does it feel to be aliiiive?!” and the stadium roared its delight at the matter, the exchange felt like a comforting embrace between old friends. A consistent element in the lives of 40,000+ people. And when James lurched into the low crawl boogie for “Sleepwalk My Life Away,” it was hard not to think the song had been a staple in sets for years. Like the excellent “Screaming Suicide,” one of the main takeaways from tonight for me was that these new 72 Seasons cuts sound like gently worn classics, taking their respective places confidently alongside stadium favorites such as “Nothing Else Matters.”
Kirk and Rob looked at ease and in their own fun spaces as “Sad But True” sent sub-waves around Amsterdam, while “The Day That Never Comes” added a touch of epic gravitas before the bone-shuddering, neolithic “Ride the Lightning.” Dear Lord, James flew into “Battery” like a streak of molten lava… his riffing hand a fiery blur. And we saw proper fire erupt from the stage during “Fuel.” Honestly, by the time “Seek & Destroy” and “Master of Puppets” closed out this first night in Amsterdam, it was (like I hinted at earlier) as if they’d never been away. The vastness of the stage is impossible to ignore, yet by that last “…Puppets” riff, it felt like it was proportionate to the amount of energy Metallica expended upon it tonight.
In the van on the way out, Rob insisted on grabbing me and roaring an incantation of some sort in my face as he shook me, and grinning like a madman. It wasn’t just having a bit of fun, it was siphoning off the energy he’d been generating all show from the power exchanges between him, the music, and the audience… real electricity. I kid you not, this guy was feral in the back of that van, and it was a wonderful thing to think that we’re only halfway through this opening No Repeat Weekend.
What will Saturday night bring?
The bar has been set high…
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