Metallica - Rock In Rio 2011

Metallica � Rock In Rio � Rio de Janeiro � 25/09/2011

Last Sunday was the day chosen by the heads of the Rock In Rio festival to be the Metal day of the festival. In the main stage, we had a very good concert by the New Yorkers Coheed and Cambria ( who raised hell in the audience playing their incomplete version of Maiden�s  The Trooper ), an always competent Mot�rhead, an incendiary, extremely heavy, and actually, quite good Slipknot  ( despite the fact that I don�t fancy that kind of Metal that much ) and the headliners, the mighty Metallica.

Ever since the intro Ecstasy Of Gold blasted from the P.A. it was clear that the 100 thousand plus crowd would make this one night to remember forever. For the bands and fans alike.

Starting with Creeping Death, For Whom The Bell Tolls and Fuel.The crowd roared and chanted like there was no tomorrow. James Hetfield was on fire, running on stage with grim from ear to ear. The crowd gave the band energy and the band gave it back with a stunning performance.

Before the following song, James announced that �maybe some new fans here don�t know the old stuff� and launched into an spectacular version of Ride The Lightning. Never letting the pace slow down, James was on the higher part of the stage strumming the acoustic guitar for the beginning of the immortal Fade To Black. Detail: when came time for the heavier riff at the end of the song the distortion failed and the riff was played like on a rehearsal, it was funny. Even James joked about that at the end of the song.

Obviously every fan noticed at the end of Fade To Black that 4 of the first five songs on the set-list were taken from the ultra-classic Ride The Lightning.

It was time for Death Magnetic. And I was very lucky here. I like Death Magnetic, but not as much as I like the 5 classic albums. However, they played only two songs and exactly those that I like most: Cyanide ( it�s amazing the power of this song on a live environment ) and All Nightmare Long.

One of the things that make Metallica great is that they continually change their set-list and you almost never know what to expect. A very welcome, er, Welcome Home ( Sanitarium ) was executed, followed by a great surprise: Orion. Now, I�m not a big fan of instrumental tunes, mainly live and specially on festivals. However, it was to honor the 25 years of the passing of the fantastic Cliff Lee Burton, so it was totally acceptable. James said in the end: �In our hearts and in our minds, Mr. Cliff Lee Burton�. It was touching.

The band retreated and we started hearing the noise of machine guns. Cue for One and a very interesting trick in the screens: they showed the images of the band all in black and white, just like the video for the song. Very clever.

How many bands can finish a song like One and before the last chord already start a tune with the quality, importance and immortality of Master Of Puppets ? Not many, I can tell you. FUCK !!! It was all I could say after they did just that.

The brilliant lyrics of Blackened, the personal Nothing Else Matters and the perennial and maybe one of the most known songs in the entire popular music spectrum, Enter Sandman closed the first part of the concert.

As it is traditional now, Metallica started the encore playing a cover song and this one was so great: Am I Evil ? from Diamond Head. Magnificent. Another surprise was Whiplash ( to almost kill all the old school fans in that sea of people ) and the traditional ending with Seek And Destroy.