Forget the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign in Sin City. Last weekend, visitors should have been greeted with a message saying: “Welcome to the planet Metallica.” All over the Strip, people were seen wearing black Metallica T-shirts – in casinos, on pool decks, and even in the gondolas of Venetian hotels. Tickets for the band’s Life Burns Faster residency at the city’s gigantic Sphere sold out quickly, so the people who managed to get tickets wanted to show off.
The band itself called the Vegas residency a “takeover,” a lifestyle convention of sorts that included special bars for fans, a giant pop-up store and even a blood drive in addition to the concerts. And although Metallica and their fans have colonized cities many times with these kinds of events, this time it was different.
“I had a dream last night that we were playing at the Sphere,” singer-guitarist James Hetfield told the crowd Thursday. “It was so cool. It’s like a dream come true and beyond. … After 45 years, there’s still a lot more fun to be had.”
Metallica has always strived to be the biggest band in the country, and The Sphere gave them their biggest production ever. The photos and videos people have posted on Instagram don’t do justice to what it actually feels like to have the band’s visuals literally surround you while they perform. At times it was disorienting. The virtual reality-style roller coaster they created for “Wherever I May Roam” — which passed through New York, Hollywood, Stonehenge and Nashville’s Grimey’s record store — seemed so real that I felt motion sickness. (“How many of you have ever vomited?” Hetfield asked the crowd Thursday.) And the lunar orb that crashed into the band during “Enter Sandman” Saturday looked like a real Metallica planet (with a pointy “M” on it) as it grew.
Jeff Yeager*
More than half a century has passed since Pink Floyd invented the larger-than-life concert spectacle, and Metallica may have perfected it at the Sphere. It was a joyous experience for the thousands of lucky people who got tickets, including Jack White and Matthew McConaughey. “This is historic,” one fan proclaimed Saturday in the venue’s men’s restroom. “It’s worth the price.”
For the residency’s kickoff concerts on Thursday and Saturday evenings, the band played two unique set lists for what they dubbed a “No Repeat Weekend,” drawing heavily from Puppet Masterwhich celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, and the Black Album. The 30 songs they played included their biggest hits (“Enter Sandman,” “One,” “Master of Puppets”), as well as a few tunes they rarely play – “Devil’s Dance,” from their recently re-released album. Reload and the 10-minute behemoth “…And Justice for All” – all to the delight of their fans. The band also sounded great, performing each song with precision as they had to match the sound to the visuals. These computer-generated scenes, in a strange way, became the real star of the event.
Jeff Yeager*
For once, the fans in the Nosebleeds were better positioned than the ones on the ground. On Saturday, a fan told me that he completely missed the many images of the Metallica-branded flags that covered the screens all the way to the top. With each song, you have to decide whether to look at the screen or squint to see where Lars Ulrich’s drums are or if Hetfield is on his knees. The band still delivered a stadium-worthy performance, and at times the Sphere showed them on screen, but for the most part they provided an excellent soundtrack to the sometimes stunning visuals. “For modern technology and old guys playing loud music, it’s really great,” Hetfield commented Thursday.
Images worked best when played from the song. For the Ride the lightning instrumental, “The Call of Ktulu”, they showed HP Lovecraft’s monster Cthulhu rising from an ocean and eventually transplanting it to the Vegas Strip to wreak havoc. “For Whom the Bell Tolls” takes Ernest Hemingway’s tale of Spanish Civil War soldiers looking up at the sky just before they die and literally shows a bombed church and the view from the cockpit of a fighter plane. The war-themed “One” depicted soldiers marching until an explosion transformed them into walking skeletons. And the way they brought their album covers to life (showing a prison riot surrounding Lady Justice during …And justice for allplacing the fans in the electric chair to Ride the lightningand bury them under charred debris for 72 seasons) was immersive. (Luckily they didn’t animate Load.)
Brett Murray*
However, not all of the visuals were as stunning. “Sad but True,” one of the band’s heaviest songs, had nothing but disembodied hands wielding hammers and men walking to accompany it. And “Orion,” an instrumental ostensibly about a mythical, badass Greek giant, was given a replica of the usual concert lighting and screens showing the band members. Plus, it was strange to hear Hetfield sing “Gimme Fuel, Gimme Fire” without any real pyro.
But the approximately 17,000 spectators paid no attention, because it was difficult not to feel overwhelmed by the spectacle. The band’s fans live, breathe and, for those who participated in the blood drive, literally bleed Metallica. So experiencing a unique event like this, and being part of a community like Metallica, was truly moving for some. The man next to me on Saturday drummed the entire show, and a few behind me kept commenting on how happy Hetfield looked on the big screen during every song. And of course, there was the one fan who made it clear that Christmas had come early for him by wearing a full Santa suit both nights and giving the ‘Snake Pit’ band members a royal St. Nick salute in front of the stage.
But the uniqueness of the event wasn’t limited to the Sphere, as fans visited Metallica’s many experiences. The pop-up shop offered more than T-shirts and band posters; it featured photo ops placing fans in the artwork (such as sitting in the Ride the lightning electric chair) and a replica of Metallica Mansion’s infamous “garage” where the band wrote Puppet Masterwell decorated with empty beer cans. Fans who spent a little more money for VIP experiences could visit the Black Box, a specialty bar that also included a replica “tuning room” where they could play real Hetfield, Hammett, and Trujillo guitars and pose with Ulrich’s drums (signs saying they wouldn’t give drumsticks to fans, because that would be chaotic), tour a Metallica museum (which featured late bassist Cliff Burton’s instrument behind glass and handwritten lyrics), and listen demos and rare songs in a musical “bar” (including the controversial “leaked Napster version” of “I Disappear”). These extra things to do have made Vegas a destination for Metallica fans.
Robert Slayback, a New York fan, allowed his son, Jake, to miss a few days of ninth grade to make the trip to Vegas for Metallica. “That’s a good reason to miss class, right?” said Robert as he and his son waited in line to enter the Black Box, where a Sirius XM broadcast was to take place. “We listen to (Metallica’s Sirius station) all the time in the car. He said, ‘(Metallica archivist) Spider-Dan will be there.’ I said, ‘He’s not in the group,’ but he’s excited.’
Brett Murray*
I also spoke with fans from across the country who made the concert a must-see event. A group of friends outside the pop-up shop told me they had come from Chicago, Philadelphia, Indiana, and Minneapolis to hang out at Life Burns Faster. “It’s hard for us at this age, in our 40s, with kids to be able to go out and do something like this,” one of the fans, Dave Leopold, told me. “So we had high expectations. Everything we heard about the Sphere said it was going to be amazing, and (the show) exceeded everything. It was 100 percent worth it.”
The group made clear on Saturday that it was well aware of the impact it was having on people’s lives. “We are so grateful that you all took the time, effort and money to come out here live to celebrate this very moment with us,” Hetfield told the crowd after playing the deep track “Leper Messiah” on Saturday. “We don’t take this for granted.”
But perhaps more significant was what he said at the start of Saturday’s show just after opening with fan favorite “Blackened”: “Are you with us? We are Metallica, and so are you.”
Nowhere was this fact clearer than after every casino concert where rivers of black Metallica T-shirts flooded the pit. Just as photos and videos can’t adequately capture what it’s like to see Metallica at the Sphere, it’s impossible to replicate the feeling of camaraderie among fans. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, as the saying goes, and Metallica and their fans will be here from time to time at least for a few more months. Viva Planet Metallica.
Jeff Yeager
Metallica “Life Burns Faster”, Night One set list:
“Battery”
“Crawling Death”
“Now that we are dead”
“Sad but true”
“The Shortest Straw”
“Wherever I can go”
“The day that never comes”
“…And justice for…
Gn entert
