Metallica: M72 World Tour Live from Texas - Night 1

Metallica has its strongest appeal with the band's first decade in the studio--then in subsequent years being a tight live band. They do a fine set here with a rare showing of Leper Messiah and Harvester of Sorrow. Just enough interesting shots of the crowd whenever it got to be too much seeing these old guys milk us. Drummer Lars is now doing this freaking thing with his tongue as he plays that makes me think he might have a hard time doing this year-long tour. Singer James having just turned 60 takes a bunch of breaks from the fast songs. This may be the "Last Days" the Bible thumped are shouting about. Que Sanitroium and later as a finale...Master of Puppets. If you're lucky you'll see a small pit explode for this now Top 100 hit.

The lion's share of the set is stadium rockers that the band can pull off well but ...can be yawn inducing. Gimmick's galore employed to keep your investment. There is only one demonstration of fire where I was wondering if any of the players would accidentally step(Jump!) into it. The awkward-shaped stage (a donut) had one poorly lit set of steps that I can imagine bringing the show down with one of these millionaires losing balance on. Instead the biggest chaos came during a rendition of Search & Destroy. Several giant beach balls fell from the sky. The crowd was able to throw many back on the stage. Several camera shots got bumped and interesting angles we then see.

I saw this at a multiplex near guitarist Kirk's hometown of El Sobrante. We had a weak turn-out with none of us thrashing the halls. To wash the images out of my system I snuck into see Talk to Me. Probably the best double feature I could ask for.