Thanks to frenetic riffs, thunderous pyrotechnics and explosive drumming that had the raucous fist-waving crowd on its feet, Godsmack pounded out a memorable performance at the MCI Center Sunday night that featured screamed vulgarities, large breasts and, of course, frenzied hard rock.
And they were just the opening act.
So while Godsmack's act was stellar, it was clear that the beer-chugging, boisterous crowd was there for one band only: the Four Horsemen themselves, Metallica. And even as the packed house savored Godsmack's electric 50-minute set, which featured an astounding solo percussion performance by frontman Sully Erna, it would not be satiated until Metallica arrived as the main course. Luckily, James Hetfield and Co. were willing and able to provide a most fulfilling bounty.
Metallica's D.C. stop in their Madly in Anger With the World tour was a celebration of unflinching, hardcore rock music. It was a night when the crowd could say no to whiny adolescent crooners, pop-punk fluff and bland modern "rock," and yes to thrashing riffs, piston-pounding percussions, women lifting their shirts over their heads and, most importantly, the assurance that these two bands could kick and have kicked the asses of the music world that left their genre behind.
Metallica stuck almost exclusively to vintage tracks, playing only four songs from their post-"Load" albums. The remaining 14 songs in the two-and-half-hour set were plucked from the band's heavy-metal discography, from classics like "Fade to Black" and "Ride the Lightning" to more obscure material like "Disposable Heroes" and "Fight Fire With Fire."
"We played that for the first time in 10 fucking years," drummer Lars Ulrich exclaimed after polishing off "The God That Failed."
The members of Metallica are now in their 40s (new bassist Robert Trujillo turns 40 on Saturday), and one could fear that their abilities are winding down, and that they couldn't possibly channel the high-voltage energy required for these roaring 15-year-old tracks. Happily, by "Sad But True," the set's third song, the band had unequivocally dispelled such notions. Ten-minute epics such as "Ride the Lightning" and "Master of Puppets" were performed impeccably, right down to guitarist Kirk Hammett's frantic (but usually inaudible) solos and Ulrich's machine-gun drumming.
Equally impressive was the minimal downtime between songs. While band members took a few breaks - one featured Trujillo serenading the crowd with an on-the-fly bass performance as the others rested - the band took no significant time off in its set. What was indicative of the musicians' stamina was when they polished off "One," their 14th song of the night. After that marathon, which began with an air strike's worth of explosions and flames and ended with a cacophony of blissful instrumental turmoil, the guitarists flopped down on stage from exhaustion. Lo and behold, they rose mere seconds later and jumped directly into "Enter Sandman."
Metallica has existed for more than 20 years, and the diverse crowd reflected that. There were the Mitch Baker biker types; Generation Xers who had probably gone to the Master of Puppets tour as headbanging teens and were now toting their spouses and kids to this concert; and suburban kids looking for something more substantial than Sum 41 to ease their ennui. Concert T-shirts ranged from 2003's Summer Sanitarium tour to shabby-looking but classic Ride the Lightning shirts featuring the electrocuted skeleton. It was also heartening to see a significant number of women in attendance, not just wives and girlfriends, but entire groups of females. But while the jeans-only crowd was diverse in age and gender, it was monochromatic in skin color; the number of black people in attendance was akin to an NHL game.
The event's energy was enough to transform even the most meek and mild-mannered into bellowing lunatics. One male concert-goer looked like just another balding, skinny, glasses-wearing 30-something. But on this night, he roared, thrashed and pumped his fist emphatically as only a die-hard rock fan could. To his young son, also there, his father, for one night at least, had become the coolest dad in the world. Thus is the power of hard rock, as performed by bands that truly love and respect their craft.
