I know these aren't everyone's favourites here, but as Metallica played really good, I mean REALLY good and there's a funny(?) story about slipknot, I figured I'd post a short review here....
The venue: a big football (or soccer, if you really think football was invented in America
) stadium. Over 50.000 people present. Awfully hot, but I was in the second or in the front row from the beginning till the end.
VADER- Unfortunately they were allowed to play only for 20 minutes, which sucked big time. A solid performance, but the sound wasn't too good (quiet guitars and vocals, loud drums) and thus the music lacked power. 20 min. of pleasant headbanging. Highlights: "Wings", "Carnal".
SHITKNOT- At first I need to stress that I'm not the kinda guy who interrupts a band he doesn't like during their performance, because I tolerate and respect others' beliefs and musical tastes. I admit I was prejudiced, because I had been familiar with their music, which I absolutely hated and couldn't understand, but I'd said to myself that I would not judge or condemn them until I see them live.
So after waiting for a really long time 5 masked "gentlemen" appeared and started playing. Some of the audience went crazy (mostly nu-metal kids, but not only, which surprised me a bit)- the front rows were doing the devil horns, screaming and headbanging. Most of the slipknot-haters were lurking in the middle rows. Luckily me and my friend have been standing beside some foreign guys who definitely weren't into Slipknot. We all had our hair tied and weren't moving at all, being both: bored and disgusted with this "show". There's nine of "The Numbers" and only one of them could be classified as a musician- the drummer's pretty good (I mean the REAL drummer, 'cause they have three "drum sets"). Me and my friend (who's a singer and a guitar player) had a really good time laughing while watching the two "virtuosos" on the guitars- they looked like they'd been playing for not more than a year and one of them had problems with spitting, 'cause he had a mask with a zip-fastener. Anyway, what a bunch of senseless, chaotic noise! The other two "drummers" were acting like monkeys- jumping on their sets, hitting them with baseball bats, all the band members would spit at each other...and at the audience- to show us how "evil" they are, I guess. Everyone was headbanging like if they were crazy, but I guess they should have rather focused on playing, as they had huge problems with that. Pathetic and hokum are the first two words that come to my mind when I think of this "music" and their behaviour. This was all about "jump da fuck up", "gimme 555, gimme 666" and "look how evil we are"- really embarassing. But still many people were digging it...uke:
THE FUNNY STORY ABOUT SHITKNOT- like I said we weren't digging the show, but weren't interrupting. We would only scream (ok, growl) "NO!" whenever the vocalist would ask whether we'd like to hear another song (we were just honestly expressing our minds). We were loud so they noticed us.
But things started to develop when one of the clowns- a fat drummer number 6 spat directly at us and "ordered" us to bang our heads- we found that pretty offensive and rude (not funny at all) and one of the foreign guys that stood beside me (from Czech Rep. or Lithuania, I presume) spat back, but obviously missed as the stage was pretty high. The clown started to laugh, so we just gave him the finger. He did the same, so we just shouted "fuck you, asshole" (my friend did it REALLY loud and everyone heard it) then took a microphone and pretended it was a penis (sic!) and started acting like if he was masturbating and then put this into his mouth and then pointed at us... meaning that we could do this to him.
I was visibly pointing at my watch (with my arms high in the air) and yawn with mouth open wide to show him how much we're bored with this spectacle. One of the guys started screaming how much slipknot sucks and that it's not music and that they should go home etc. That really pissed the fucker off- he took a bottle of mineral water and threw at us with full force (not the way you usually throw mineral waters to the audience), but missed. That in turn pissed us off- we tried to pick the bottle up and cast it back, but one of the security guards took it away from us. He started to laugh and started to show us that he'll cut our throats, will find us after the gig and kick our asses and stuff. We "invited" him to the snake pit. He was so pissed that he would only play on and off- occassionally. He was focused on the 4 of us all the time.He took another bottle and threw- this one hit me in the arm- I picked it up and handed to the guy who was closer to that clown and he threw it, but missed and the security guard yelled at him and said that if we don't stop he'll wforce us to leave. We all wanted to see Metallica, so we calmed down a little bit. Meanwhile "our" clown disappered....and appeared under the stage by the barriers....with four personal guards (what a pussy!) and "climbed" it, which scared one of the guys, who stepped back and made some room for him to get into the pit, but he wouldn't dare- he only moved his head towards my friend and looked itno his eyes- his round nose was touching my friends nose- he thought he could scare him, but my friend had a truly bored face, remained stoic and didn't move an inch. The clown then looked at me, his angry eyes were full of fear, I couldn't be stoic- I just bursted into laughter... but he didn't provoke me to punch him (even though people from the back were encouraging me to do so). We all were waiting for a strike with our fists clenched, 'cause we knew that if we started, the guards would simply kill us. But the coward went away.
They played a couple more songs, he poured some water at us, showed us the middle finger and the "performance" was finally over.
I know that's a long story and I apologise for boring you, but I just thought I'd share, because it was the first time I met "musicians" that were such assholes. The guy really lost his temper, because someone dared not to worship him and his little band. I was really surprised. I hadn't expected a good show from slipknot, but I wasn't prepared for being offended or spat on.
finally...
METALLICA- the whole non-music envelope of the show (fragments of the movie "the good, the bad and the ugly", framents of "full-metal jacket, the visual and sound effects) were really great. So was the setlist- they bagun with Blackened, then Fuel, The Four Horsemen (!). The rest not in order:
Fade To Black- really great
Sad But True, Enter Sandman, Wherever I may Roam- obviously- but it was pretty good.
Frantic and St.Anger- only two songs off the last record.
One- with great fire and shooting effects at the beggining.
Battery and Master Of Puppets (Master simply killed!).
King Nothing- I don't like Load, but I was really fond of the way they played this song
Creeping Death- who's seen them live knows how good it was. Definitely a highlight
Then they got off the stage, but came back and James said they'd play one more "fast or slow?". "FAAAAAAST!". "Ok, you wanted it"....and they played "Dyers Eve"- the crowd was nuts. They were about to go, but we didn't want to let them, so James asked "who's got Kill'em All?"...and we all know what was played.
To sum up- a really good show (I was standing oin front of Kirk )- very metal (no "baby") and intense (but in a different way than slipknot, of course). I was surprised that even though James can't sing all the tunes like he could and Lars has problems with playing some of the faster stuff, they still kick much ass....live of course, 'cause I'm the last one to praise "St. Anger"..
Pardon all the mistakes and the incoherent style of this review, but I was in a hurry and just thought I'd share my feelings with The Legions.
Ps. People's response to my "souls of black" t-shirt was amazingly positive
I was really blown away by their behaviour, great contact with the audience, energy and the crowd response- everybody was singing every song...shit, I even sang along to Nothing Else Matters!
The venue: a big football (or soccer, if you really think football was invented in America
) stadium. Over 50.000 people present. Awfully hot, but I was in the second or in the front row from the beginning till the end.VADER- Unfortunately they were allowed to play only for 20 minutes, which sucked big time. A solid performance, but the sound wasn't too good (quiet guitars and vocals, loud drums) and thus the music lacked power. 20 min. of pleasant headbanging. Highlights: "Wings", "Carnal".
SHITKNOT- At first I need to stress that I'm not the kinda guy who interrupts a band he doesn't like during their performance, because I tolerate and respect others' beliefs and musical tastes. I admit I was prejudiced, because I had been familiar with their music, which I absolutely hated and couldn't understand, but I'd said to myself that I would not judge or condemn them until I see them live.
So after waiting for a really long time 5 masked "gentlemen" appeared and started playing. Some of the audience went crazy (mostly nu-metal kids, but not only, which surprised me a bit)- the front rows were doing the devil horns, screaming and headbanging. Most of the slipknot-haters were lurking in the middle rows. Luckily me and my friend have been standing beside some foreign guys who definitely weren't into Slipknot. We all had our hair tied and weren't moving at all, being both: bored and disgusted with this "show". There's nine of "The Numbers" and only one of them could be classified as a musician- the drummer's pretty good (I mean the REAL drummer, 'cause they have three "drum sets"). Me and my friend (who's a singer and a guitar player) had a really good time laughing while watching the two "virtuosos" on the guitars- they looked like they'd been playing for not more than a year and one of them had problems with spitting, 'cause he had a mask with a zip-fastener. Anyway, what a bunch of senseless, chaotic noise! The other two "drummers" were acting like monkeys- jumping on their sets, hitting them with baseball bats, all the band members would spit at each other...and at the audience- to show us how "evil" they are, I guess. Everyone was headbanging like if they were crazy, but I guess they should have rather focused on playing, as they had huge problems with that. Pathetic and hokum are the first two words that come to my mind when I think of this "music" and their behaviour. This was all about "jump da fuck up", "gimme 555, gimme 666" and "look how evil we are"- really embarassing. But still many people were digging it...
uke: THE FUNNY STORY ABOUT SHITKNOT- like I said we weren't digging the show, but weren't interrupting. We would only scream (ok, growl) "NO!" whenever the vocalist would ask whether we'd like to hear another song (we were just honestly expressing our minds). We were loud so they noticed us.
But things started to develop when one of the clowns- a fat drummer number 6 spat directly at us and "ordered" us to bang our heads- we found that pretty offensive and rude (not funny at all) and one of the foreign guys that stood beside me (from Czech Rep. or Lithuania, I presume) spat back, but obviously missed as the stage was pretty high. The clown started to laugh, so we just gave him the finger. He did the same, so we just shouted "fuck you, asshole" (my friend did it REALLY loud and everyone heard it) then took a microphone and pretended it was a penis (sic!) and started acting like if he was masturbating and then put this into his mouth and then pointed at us... meaning that we could do this to him.
I was visibly pointing at my watch (with my arms high in the air) and yawn with mouth open wide to show him how much we're bored with this spectacle. One of the guys started screaming how much slipknot sucks and that it's not music and that they should go home etc. That really pissed the fucker off- he took a bottle of mineral water and threw at us with full force (not the way you usually throw mineral waters to the audience), but missed. That in turn pissed us off- we tried to pick the bottle up and cast it back, but one of the security guards took it away from us. He started to laugh and started to show us that he'll cut our throats, will find us after the gig and kick our asses and stuff. We "invited" him to the snake pit. He was so pissed that he would only play on and off- occassionally. He was focused on the 4 of us all the time.He took another bottle and threw- this one hit me in the arm- I picked it up and handed to the guy who was closer to that clown and he threw it, but missed and the security guard yelled at him and said that if we don't stop he'll wforce us to leave. We all wanted to see Metallica, so we calmed down a little bit. Meanwhile "our" clown disappered....and appeared under the stage by the barriers....with four personal guards (what a pussy!) and "climbed" it, which scared one of the guys, who stepped back and made some room for him to get into the pit, but he wouldn't dare- he only moved his head towards my friend and looked itno his eyes- his round nose was touching my friends nose- he thought he could scare him, but my friend had a truly bored face, remained stoic and didn't move an inch. The clown then looked at me, his angry eyes were full of fear, I couldn't be stoic- I just bursted into laughter... but he didn't provoke me to punch him (even though people from the back were encouraging me to do so). We all were waiting for a strike with our fists clenched, 'cause we knew that if we started, the guards would simply kill us. But the coward went away.
They played a couple more songs, he poured some water at us, showed us the middle finger and the "performance" was finally over.
I know that's a long story and I apologise for boring you, but I just thought I'd share, because it was the first time I met "musicians" that were such assholes. The guy really lost his temper, because someone dared not to worship him and his little band. I was really surprised. I hadn't expected a good show from slipknot, but I wasn't prepared for being offended or spat on.
finally...
METALLICA- the whole non-music envelope of the show (fragments of the movie "the good, the bad and the ugly", framents of "full-metal jacket, the visual and sound effects) were really great. So was the setlist- they bagun with Blackened, then Fuel, The Four Horsemen (!). The rest not in order:
Fade To Black- really great
Sad But True, Enter Sandman, Wherever I may Roam- obviously- but it was pretty good.
Frantic and St.Anger- only two songs off the last record.
One- with great fire and shooting effects at the beggining.
Battery and Master Of Puppets (Master simply killed!).
King Nothing- I don't like Load, but I was really fond of the way they played this song
Creeping Death- who's seen them live knows how good it was. Definitely a highlight
Then they got off the stage, but came back and James said they'd play one more "fast or slow?". "FAAAAAAST!". "Ok, you wanted it"....and they played "Dyers Eve"- the crowd was nuts. They were about to go, but we didn't want to let them, so James asked "who's got Kill'em All?"...and we all know what was played.
To sum up- a really good show (I was standing oin front of Kirk
)- very metal (no "baby") and intense (but in a different way than slipknot, of course). I was surprised that even though James can't sing all the tunes like he could and Lars has problems with playing some of the faster stuff, they still kick much ass....live of course, 'cause I'm the last one to praise "St. Anger"..Pardon all the mistakes and the incoherent style of this review, but I was in a hurry and just thought I'd share my feelings with The Legions.
Ps. People's response to my "souls of black" t-shirt was amazingly positive
I was really blown away by their behaviour, great contact with the audience, energy and the crowd response- everybody was singing every song...shit, I even sang along to Nothing Else Matters!
