Metallica , @ Acer Arena,Sydney (11/11/10)

Wed 17th Nov, 2010 in Gig Reviews

After wowing fans with a single September performance, featuring support from The Sword and Fear Factory, metal Gods Metallica brought their massive stage show back to Sydney for its second leg of performances in their extensive two month Australasian tour and unsurprisingly, blew Sydney fans away for the second time in two months.

Stoner metalheads Baroness kicked off the night, ripping into a brief set featuring of a number of eclectic and innovative tracks from their latest Blue Album including A Horse Called Golgotha and War, Wisdom and Rhyme. From the outset, it seemed as if the odds were against the Georgian quartet who were quickly labelled by the unsurprisingly small audience as “Some shitty band from the US”. However, despite the underwhelming sound delivered by the band (presumably Metallica are rather protective of their PA), Baroness gave it their all in what was unquestionably an incredibly difficult opening slot.

Next up came Virginian groove metallers Lamb Of God, providing a malicious set of brutality to the huge number of fans who seemed to make up most of the rather small audience who’d turned up for the supports. Whereas Baroness felt like a small club band, whose failure to utilise the whole stage and PA led to a rather weak presence, Lamb of God dominated the huge stage with Randy Blythe strolling back and forth with mic in hand and drummer Chris Adler mounted on a raised platform blowing out eardrums with thunderous grooves.

Fan favourites Laid to Rest, Redneck and You’ve Got Something to Die For managed to get the subdued crowd head banging, moshing and, not surprisingly, circle pitting to the entertaining disgust of older fans.

As anticipation built throughout the suddenly packed arena a pounding heartbeat rang out. Roaring and screaming ensued, as lasers shot down from the ceiling and Metallica sprinting onto stage with singer/guitarist James Hetfield bursting into the signature chugging intro to That Was Just Your Life.

What ensued were two hours of roaring, deafening and glorious heavy metal that fans unsurprisingly couldn’t get enough of. As James Hetfield (rather redundantly) introduced the band members, he stated that “For those of you who don’t know how this works, we’re going to play some new stuff and some old stuff” and sure enough, Metallica delivered tracks from every album (Except for the critically panned St Anger ), including an impressive encore consisting of a cover of Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy and Kill Em All.

The accompanying stage setup was one of the most impressive elements of the night, with huge Death Magnetic coffin shaped lights suspended from the ceiling frequently lit up by searing pyrotechnics. Throughout the night each member of the band (bar drummer Lars Ulrich ), varied their position on the stage that was set in the middle of Acer Arena, with the drum kit rotating at various points in the performance to give each section of the audience the opportunity to get up close to the metal gods.

Classic Metallica anthems Master of Puppets, Sad but True and One all proved to be highlights of the night, with newer material being disposed of early in the set to great praise from fans. Technically, as one would expect from the world’s biggest metal band, Metallica were perfect, with each track executed flawlessly and instrumental solos from both lead guitarist Kirk Hammet and bassist Robert Trujillo.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end and with somewhat reluctance, Metallica slowly climbed off stage, leaving a swathe of screaming fans in their wake that looked equally stunned and amazed at what they had just experienced from what is surely one of the greatest metal bands of all time.

Check out the photos from the show