Ok, long read coming up!!!!!
Donington Festival, England - 9th-10th June
The first day of our trip around Europe started on the 9th of June which meant I missed my dad’s birthday again cos I was flying down to attend the first day of the Donington Festival. I met up with my equally nutty Metallica friends at Birmingham airport and after we checked into the hotel, we set of for Donington. We were told in the petrol station next to our hotel that it was a 25 minute walk so we decided to walk it. Twenty five minutes my arse!!! Over an hour later we got there!!! Not the best place to walk with uneven banks and traffic roaring past constantly, plus it was in the blazing mid-day sun! Anyway, we got there eventually and it looked a lot busier that it did last year! There weren’t many bands I wanted to see on the Friday. One I did want to see Soulfly cos I love Max Cavalera. They were really good and I thoroughly enjoyed their set. Most of that day was just spent hanging out with friends. Me, Kat and Ade went to watch Backyard Babies in the MySpace/Gibson tent and I really loved them as well, even tho that was the first time I’d ever heard any of their stuff. I wanted to see some of Deftones and Tool cos I know they are massive bands and I haven’t really heard much of their stuff but I found both really boring, Tool especially. We didn’t stay long after that and headed back for bed ready for the main event the next day.
The 10th of June was a long one for us. The not so surprise band this year was Down who we all wanted to see and they were on at 11am so we were at the park for about 10.30am that day. They were excellent and got the crowd really hyped up, despite it being so early in the morning. That got us all excited for seeing them on their own tour in Belfast on the 12th. A huge meet-up of all the members of the MetClub was organised before the festival and it was brilliant!!! Loads of people turned up and we all sat around chatting and hanging out. Met a lot of old faces but met a lot of new ones too. There were Metallica fans from all over the world – Scotland, England, Ireland, America, Norway, China and even Australia. I thought it was so cool that all these people were here because of one band! The next band I wanted to see that day was Alice In Chains. The new singer, William DuVall, was great and really did Layne justice. I loved hearing Down In A Hole live! I wanted to see Avenged Sevenfold because I’d heard a lot about them but never actually heard any of their music. Well, they completely blew my head off!!! I loved them!!! I’d heard their cover of Pantera’s Walk on the free cd in Kerrang but hearing it live was immense!! Trivium is not a band I liked on cd cos I couldn’t stand the vocals but I was so impressed with them live!! Matt’s really toned down the screaming. I loved From Ember To Inferno and I’ve had Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr in my head constantly since then! During Alice In Chains a notice kept coming up on the big screen saying that Jonathan Davis from Korn was in hospital and Korn would be performing a set with special guest vocalists. It seems this is becoming a sort of Donington tradition now – people from bands becoming ill and other bands members filling in for them! We decided we wanted to go down the front for Korn but they were delayed for about half an hour so everyone kept themselves amused by having bottle fights, or girls flashing everywhere. Eventually they came on and David announced what had happened. The singer from a band called 10 Years started and he sang It’s On and another song which I can’t remember, but he was very poor at both. The singer from Skindred did A.D.I.D.A.S and he was brilliant. Corey Taylor did Coming Undone and Freak On A Leash and Matt Heafy did Blind. They both did great jobs I thought. The pit was pretty brutal during Korn which I’d anticipated, especially since we got about four from the barrier then. Waiting for Metallica, the crowd was still pushing and shoving the whole time and I was getting pissed off about it so I decided to go back so I could enjoy the gig rather than spend the whole time worrying about keeping myself upright. When the It’s A Long Way To The Tope (If You Wanna Rock & Roll) by AC/DC came over the PA, everyone who’s seen Metallica before went mental cos that’s what they play just before they come on. Then The Ecstasy Of Gold started and my heart just swelled and tears welled up in my eyes cos I was just so happy to be seeing my boys again!!! They opened with Creeping Death which got the crowd whipped into a frenzy from the first chord! When the “Die! Die! Die!” chant riff started, James didn’t need to do anything to get them to do that, it was just 100,000 people screaming “DIE!” at the top of their voices throwing the horns in the air – it looked amazing!!! I think James was a bit overwhelmed cos he was like “Oh my God!!!!! You should see yourselves!!!!!!” During the song I got a tap on my shoulder and it was Mark, who I’d left down the front, coming to join me cos he was getting too crushed at the front. Donington is probably one of the most brutal crowds in the world. The guys were on fire and stormed through Fuel and Wherever I May Roam. Then came the UK debut of their new song, as yet untitled. I really love this song and Lars is tearing it up on the drums, especially the double bass!!! We’d all heard bootlegs of the song several times before so me and Mark were singing along and everyone was looking at us thinking how the fuck do they know this song?!?! Hehe!! After that on the big screen, there was video playing introducing “in its entirety” the whole Master Of Puppets album to celebrate the 20th anniversary. The video screen then showed a camera scanning over a mixing board, pictures of Cliff, drumsticks, plectrums, Jack Daniels etc until it fell on a tape reel entitled “Metallica – Battery”. As it started to spin, the intro to Battery blasted out over the PA and everyone went crazy!!! Master Of Puppets was incredible, James is sounding amazing – singing every word of the song just like the record. After playing amazing versions of The Thing That Should Not Be, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Disposable Heroes and Leper Messiah, the next song was the only one from that album I hadn’t heard live before – Orion. Rob started with a bass solo with Lars joining in, followed by James and Kirk. That was another teary eyed moment for me. It was incredible live, and very brave of them to play an instrumental song especially at a festival and one of that length. Damage Inc was brutal and got the crowd so hyped up again. The run of the classic songs was next followed by a cover of Die, Die My Darling which included help from Avenged Sevenfold and Trivium. Seek & Destroy finished the evening with everyone in full voice!!! They were amazing!!! Afterwards we all met up again and my friend Kat was telling us all about what happened backstage. She was asked by Met On Tour to film the meet and greet and the whole show!!!! She also got to meet several bands and took a shuttle bus with Down, in which a very wasted Pepper Keenan was trying to boot the door in singing Lords Of Destruction by Black Label Society!! Hahaha, I love that story!!
Metallica & Friends, Dublin - 11th June 2006
Whenever we see Metallica, it always seems to involve us having no sleep beforehand! The 7.50am flight from Birmingham to Dublin was dubbed “Metalliair” since half the plane was filled with Metallica shirts!! It was great!!! We were all staying at our friend’s house in Dublin, in which we relaxed in before the gig. About lunchtime we headed out for the gig at the RDS. We stopped in Subway to get some food and met this guy who was going on his own so we adopted him for the day!! He became known as “Scott, the random Australian bloke” and he hung out with us all day and was really cool! The RDS is not a very great venue, but it’s special to me because that was where I saw Metallica for the very first time back in 2003. We’d got our tickets through the fan club so we automatically got pit passes for the front which I was very pleased about. Alice In Chains and Avenged Sevenfold were playing again. Korn were supposed to be but cancelled because of Jon’s illness. The other bands were great once again and during Avenged Sevenfold, I managed to get second row on the right with a couple of the Americans who’d come over. Metallica were incredible again!! The setlist was the same as Donington apart from The God That Failed and the song they HAVE to play in Dublin – Whiskey In The Jar. During Leper Messiah, James was singing it over on our side and as he was going back to centre stage, he slipped and fell down on one knee missing a couple of lines. It was so funny, I was pissing myself laughing!!! So was he and after the song had finished, he apologised saying “That’s what I get for spitting on the stage!” Hehehe!!! Before the last two songs he brought his daughter Cali out because it was her 8th birthday and we all sung happy birthday to her. She is so cute and looks so much like her mum!!! After that, they went into Whiskey which I went properly nuts at!! Me and this random guy next to me jumped up and down for practically the whole song screaming every word. I managed to catch a plectrum from Rob in mid air which I was very chuffed about cos it’s usually a mad scramble on the floor for them. I felt like I’d been hit by a bus afterwards and after every Metallica gig we always seem to have to walk miles in pain!! We’d stopped at Burger King to get some food and then went back to Su and Neil’s flat and just laughed at everything!! It was like we were all high, but we were just so wired from the gig.
Down, Belfast - 12th June
After the Dublin show we were all knackered so slept pretty late. We must have got at least 7 hours sleep – a lie-in for a Metallica road dog!! Ade had bought me and Kat tickets to see Down in Belfast so we had a two hour drive from Dublin to Belfast to attend this gig. Me and Kat passed out in the car so I don’t remember much of the journey!! The gig was at a tiny venue called the Mandela Hall. There was no support act, just a video screen showing old videos such as Ace Of Spades, For Whom The Bell Tolls etc which had the crowd singing at the top their voices before the band had even come on!!! I was very surprised at the crowd, it was nowhere near as violent as I thought it would be. My favourite songs of the night were Temptation’s Wings (My favourite Down song) and New Orleans Is A Dying Whore. The band was very tight and Phil didn’t talk as much shit onstage as he has done in the past. Before Bury Me In Smoke someone was shouting for them to play some Pantera songs, but Phil was very civil about it and talked about how much he respected Pantera and loved their music but this was his band now.
Down, Dublin - 13th June
I thought four gigs in a row would have been plenty and that I’d be getting a bit of a break before going to Italy but no! Steve asked if we wanted to go see Down on the last night of their tour in Dublin. Kat and Ade had to work but I was all for it, so we headed down about 6pm but Steve took ages in getting ready and we hit a tailback coming into Dublin so we’d missed the first 20mins of the gig. We’d bought the tickets late so we were in the seats up in the balcony. It wasn’t a bad view and the band was still amazing!!! At one point, Pepper took his guitar off, put it down and walked off stage for a good couple of minutes. I think Phil must have been talking shit on him again. I thought he’d maybe broken a string but when he came back on, he picked up the same guitar. After the gig we met up with Su and Neil again and chatted about the gig. We decided to wait and see if we could meet the band afterwards. We waited about 45 minutes before Kirk came out. He signed our tickets, we got a photo with him and he was really cool!!! The car park we were in was closing at half past twelve so we had to run and get the car. We circled the venue a couple of times to see if we could see any more of the band had come out but they hadn’t so we left for Belfast. About half an hour later I got a text from Su saying they’d met Phil, Pepper and Rex which I was really gutted about since I’d loved Phil and Rex since Vulgar Display Of Power came out and Pepper is just fucking cool. Nevermind, maybe next time!
Metallica & friends, Italy – 17th June
After five gigs in a row I was pretty shattered so I was glad to have a couple of days to chill before setting off for Italy. We flew to London first and stayed there before setting off for Italy at 4am on the Saturday. We flew to Milan, got a connecting flight to Bologna, got a bus to the train station, got a train to Imola and then got a taxi to the hotel!!!! All that before the gig is pretty tough going!! It was so hot and humid that day and as a Scottish person, I am not used to the heat so this was killing me!! We dumped our bags, got freshened up and then set off for the San Marino race track which was where the gig was being held. There were no signposts showing where the entrance was so we just tried to follow the stream of Metallica shirts and eventually found the entrance. They don’t half make you walk to get to the stage anyway!!! I think we must have lapped the whole race track!! Eventually we got to the stage and sat down to watch Trivium. There were very little grassy bits to sit on so we had to sit in the middle of a huge tarmac area which was very uncomfortable and very hot!! A fun activity for us at gigs is to go “VBB spotting” which stands for “Very Bad Bootleg” and Italy has hundreds of them!!!! Apart from our own, I think we only saw about 3 official shirts that whole day!!! During Lacuna Coil the heat was getting to me so I had to go and find some shade in the Heineken tent. I came back to watch Avenged Sevenfold who I love more and more each time I see them and after them The Darkness were on. We were confused about why they were so high up on the bill because their five minutes of fame in the UK has certainly finished but apart from Metallica, they got the best response of the day!!! Even more so than Lacuna Coil who’re Italian!! The next thing that happened was a first for any festival I’d been to before. They had a gap in the bands to show the Italy vs USA World Cup match. Now, a football match is boring for me at the best of times, but a football match commentated entirely in Italian is even more boring for me!!! I was dozing during the first half only to be woken up when Italy scored. During the second half we went to find spaces in the front pit. The setlist was the same as Donington but they were still amazing!!!! The new song just gets better and better every time I hear it!! It’s such a great song with huge chunky riffs and Lars’ drumming is on top form!! Every time I’ve seen Orion live, I’ve cried during it and felt like a complete idiot!! That song just really means something to me. The cover song this time was Last Caress which I love!! I got another plectrum from Rob. Had a bit of a fight for this one cos me and another guy stood on it at the same time but I was the one who got it in the end!! Once again, I felt like I’d been hit by a bus after this gig and we had to walk miles to get back to the hotel. The gig had finished really late and we didn’t get to bed till after half 4 that morning – so we’d been up a full 24 hours at this point!!! The next day, because we had so many planes, trains and automobiles to catch we had to get up at 8am, another day with four hours sleep. The trip back home was a nightmare!!!! I’m diabetic so have to carry needles in my hand luggage and this posed a problem at Bologna airport and I have never been so scared at an airport in my life!! I’m sitting in the security office feeling like such a criminal whilst these two guards are talking in Italian and I have no idea what they’re saying!!! Plus because check in was so slow, we were cutting it fine to get the flight anyway and if we’d missed that, it would have screwed the rest of the journey home completely!!!! However we got on the flight just in time and got our flight in Milan ok. When we got to London there was a lot of goodbyes which I hate cos I know how much I’m gonna miss these guys. Landing in Edinburgh, I stepped off the plane and saw that it was raining, at which I knew I was home!! Hehe!! As much as I love going on the road, there is nothing better than coming back home!!! We were all shattered by the end of it, but I know one thing for certain. If Metallica were touring again tomorrow – we all be off like a shot!!!! To quote Whiplash, “Hotel rooms and motorways, life out here is raw. We’ll never stop, we’ll never quit – cos we love Metallica!!!!”
I'm with my friends Neil, Kat & Susan. You can see the main stage in the back ground.
