Metallica
With Special Guests Volbeat and Lamb Of God
Times Union Center
November 12, 2009

SET LIST
01.That Was Just Your Life
02. The End of the Line
03. Ride the Lightning
04. The Memory Remains
05. One
06. Broken, Beat and Scarred
07. Cyanide
08. Sad but True
09. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
10. All Nightmare Long
11. The Day That Never Comes
12. Master of Puppets
13. Battery
14. Nothing Else Matters
15. Enter Sandman
16. Stone Cold Crazy
17. Motorbreath
18. Seek and Destroy

Well well, Metallica has come back to Albany.  Hmmm, couldn’t see that one coming with all of the radio play and press these guys get on every single fucking station in this area every fucking minute of every day!!!!  You know it’s funny; recently the radio stations have also been threatening to over saturate the airwaves with Slayer now, perhaps in anticipation of their upcoming show at the Glens Falls Civic Center.  But, that is a rant for another day my friends.  I am writing to tell you about the Metallica show at the TU on November 12.  Yes I went, and you may ask “If your doing all of this bitching and moaning about Metallica on the radio, why did you go to the show?”  Well I got free fucking tickets, jackass!!! Honestly, getting free tickets was the only way my ass was going, considering the skyrocket prices the Times Useless Center was charging, along with all of those fucksters at Stub Hub and Stick-it-to-you Master.  Any who, here is how the night went down, play by play, second by precious heavy metal second.

THE APPROACH
After chomping on some burrito goodness at Bombers, my brother and I headed downtown to the TU.  We got down there about half an hour before show time and there was zero parking, all lots were full, and not a fucking inch of automobile real estate could be found anywhere.  We ended up having to park way far away.  Needless to say we had a little bit of a hike on our hands to get to the show.  During our 15 minute trek through the drunken jungle of North Pearl, I couldn’t help but take notice of the many other concertgoers on their way in.  It actually seemed like there were very few die hard Metallica fans, and mostly middle aged dads with their kids!!!   And then it hit me!!!!  I’ve been in a time warp!  This isn’t 89’, it’s mo’fuckin 09’!  The old metal heads grew up, and the ones that didn’t die of drugs and booze got law degrees and glasses and got their wives to pop out a few kids.  CULTURE SHOCK!

BEER?
So, we get to the TU, and it was a mob scene (at least for Albany, seeing as this was the only real concert happening in this area for quite some time).  We get our tickets scanned (there was hardly a line at this point) and got in.  First mission, we need beer!!!!

Now I have to say, I hadn’t been to the Times Useless Center in a while, so I was pleasantly surprised to see they had put in a little bar.  Cool.  Also, it seemed like they had plenty of beer vendors stationed throughout the center to quench that Metallica thirst (this point was proven wrong to me, more on that later).  At this point, it was still early, and Danish band Volbeat had just begun.  The beer vendors seemed bored, there were a million of them and no lines.  We stepped right up and got us some fat brews.  The single most important thing about beer here however was the fact that you could bring it to your seats!!!  Correct me if I’m wrong (and I might be) but I think in the past this may have been prohibited, forcing beer drinkers to drink in a beer garden area.  Also, this is a big improvement over shitty venues like SPAC where you can’t even exercise your GOD GIVEN AMERICAN RIGHT TO DRINK BEER while you watch a show; you must be corralled like pigs in shit to drink 12 dollar beers.  Fucking Gay*.  Needless to say, I was excited about this, and just in case Lars and Hetfield start bitching about MP3’s and Napster, I can just pound some beers and block them out!!!

RACK OF LAMB

With beers in hand, we find our seats.  We had pretty good seats, but in this case almost everyone had good seats, due to the fact that the stage was set up in the rounds.  Danish band Volbeat was playing.  I never heard of them, and they were actually pretty good.  They reminded me of Quicksand from the 90’s.  The only thing that made them kind of stupid was the posing and the makeup some of them had on.  The one guitar player was doing that Korny pose where he bends over low with the guitar and just stays there, sort of like he’s waiting to get ass raped by the lead singer.  I fucking hate that.  Just fucking let your real emotion out.  People can tell when you’re faking your way through a set dude.  Just be real!!!

And then Lamb of God came on.  Quick story before I rip on these fags*.  It was around 1999 and I was at a Dunkin’ Donuts with my brother.  We see this metal dude who we knew from high school and we start shooting the shit.  He says “Hey man, you ever hear of Lamb of God?  They are this new band and they are going to be the next Pantera!”  I was intrigued, but it would be years later before I would actually hear some of their stuff.

A microphone + a steaming pile of shit = Lamb of God

Let me tell you something, if I put a microphone up to a steaming pile of shit and recorded it, it would sound something like these guys.  I love metal, but this is fucking stupid metal (it seems like most new metal is stupid these days). These guys are not Pantera.  Pantera had groove, feel, and when Phil screamed, it was awesome, musical screaming!!!  These guys had none of these traits, and they definitely showed that when they hit the stage.  Oh, and they had die hard fans on the floor, with circle pits abundant.  That was probably the only cool part of their set.  Their actual playing had everyone in the arena with their hands over their ears.  It sounded like they put all of their instruments and members into a big box and dropped it off of a bridge. Pure garbage.  I am so passionate about this that I am going to state it as a Kapitol Magazine fact.

20 MINUTE WARNING
As if God answered every ones prayers, his little Lambs ended their set.  Almost immediately, as if by a magic spell, everyone began filing out of the area into the main concourse, and all for 1 reason, BEER!  I could use one by now after that bullshit set, so we decide to join the masses as well.  I figured shit, I know there are a lot of people going for beer but  there were so many vendors, it shouldn’t be a problem right?  Wrong.  It was a trailer park beer riot!  Every vendor was slammed with massively long lines.  The entire concourse was packed nut – to – butt.  There was no way I was getting a beer in time for Metallica.  I was defeated.  I was thinking, Metallica better be fucking good for me to get through their set without a fresh cold one.  BTW, a little side note about some of the people at this show (most notably the women).  As I was strolling through the mobbed concourse, I couldn’t notice that there were many older, hot women.  I guess it goes with the show and the band; there were some definite milfs.  Not Super Milfs mind you, these chicks were all a little rough, but there was some aged potential if you know what I mean.

THE MAIN EVENT
Back at our seats, we were ready for Metallica.  The lights went dim, and then, there they were.  Lars, Kirk, Robert, James.  I was personally excited to see Robert Trujillo, former bass player for Suicidal Tendencies.  I have always been a big fan of him and Suicidal.  He is an incredible bass player, and is a force to be reckoned with onstage.  It made me wonder how he ended up with these douches.  2 words came to mind, FAT MONEY, and I don’t blame him.

The band kicked off with “That Was Just Your Life” and “The End of the Line,” two from their latest album Death Magnetic.  Now if you read my review of Death Magnetic in this issue of Kapitol Magazine, you will know my feelings towards this album.  Needless to say, these songs don’t really translate well live.  They sounded like one big mush of shit.  I could tell their playing was tight, but these songs just aren’t good live.  I could tell partly because I was looking around at people sitting near me, and they had their ears covered just like they did during Lamb of Shit.

Next up came “Ride the Lightning,” “The Memory Remains,” and “One.”  The old school fans rejoiced.  Loud cheers could be heard any moment that they could be heard.  The band was as super tight on these as ever.  Now I was getting into it.  James was using the ‘in the rounds’ arena setup to his advantage, leaving no fan unadorned.  I thought that was really cool.  No matter where you sat, at some point in the show, you felt like you were getting a personal performance from the band.

And then there was “Broken, Beat And Scarred,” and “Cyanide,” two more songs off of Death Magnetic that just aren’t meant to be live songs, just exercises in showing off how many different riffs they can pack into the smallest amount of time.  They have nothing to do with musicality.  At this point, all I wanted to hear was Master of Puppets, and I had to wait 4 more songs till I heard it.  Those four songs included the classics “Sad but True” and “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” but unfortunately also included the stupidly long “The Day That Never Comes” as well as “All Nightmare Long.” I knew the local Albany radio stations were blowing Metallica and their handlers when I started hearing “The Day That Never Comes” as a single being played all the time.  It’s long, and slam packed with millions of riffs that don’t go together.  I guess that was their one attempt at being “radio rebels.”  What a fucking joke.

Anyway, Master of Puppets came on, and it was awesome.  Now a days, when I hear that song, all I can think about is the movie Old School and the scene where Will Ferrell and gang kidnap the pledges with their pimpin’ black van (after seeing the movie, some friends and I did just that for real, complete with Master of Puppets blaring out of our van).  Awesomeness!  By the way, did I mention they had pyrotechnics at this concert?  Oh yes, flames were shooting out of the stage frequently throughout the set.  It made the arena hot; my ass was sweating from it and had me thinking of the band Great White.  It was pretty cool, and made for a great show where the music may have lacked.  Shit if was hot for me, I wonder how the band felt?

The show wrapped up with “Nothing Else Matters,” “Enter Sandman.” “Stone Cold Crazy”, “Motorbreath,” and “Seek and Destroy.”  I left after Stone Cold Crazy, which I was surprised they played.  It’s a really cool Queen cover they did on Garage Inc.  I wish they did “A National Acrobat” and “Sabbra Cadabbra”, two other personal favs of mine off of that album.  At this point I had to leave. I was just so thirsty for a brew and wanted to beat the mass exodus out of there.

One more thing.  During some of the songs (I can’t remember which) it seemed like Lars would do these massive fills and throw James and the other guys off.  It happened like five times.  Did anyone else catch that?  I know that this is a band that is sometimes filled with mutual animosity, and I was wondering if it was Lars fucking with them, a bad monitor mix, or what.

THE BOTTOM FUCKING LINE
Honestly, I like some Metallica stuff, mainly from the eras where they weren’t being whining pussy-farts.   Show-wise, despite my gripes, they probably put on the best show this area has seen in a while (and that isn’t saying much).  It was really a mixed bag with them.  The Death Magnetic stuff kind of put a kink in what would otherwise be a pretty good set.  The Bottom Fucking Line:  Robert Trujillo rules.  -The Secret Shitmaster

*PLEASE NOTE:  Due to recent developments on “South Park” the word fag, when used here, refers to :
1. An extremely annoying, inconsiderate person most commonly associated with Harley riders.
2. A person who owns or frequently rides a Harley.”  Henceforth, the word gay refers to people of make excessive noise for no plausible reason, or are lame.  Neither word refers to Homosexuals and/or Transgender individuals at Kapitol Magazine.