What a night! Metallica Day in NYC! They started out with taking photos with journalists and radio industry elites at the world famous Electric Lady Studios on W 8th Street. Then we got to list to about half of the album (titles can’t be revealed) but I am telling you, the music is OUTSTANDING. The best in years if you ask me! That ole spark is back and I don’t know if they are like a fine wine, getting better with age or the addition of former engineer, now producer Greg Fidelman had something to do with it, but I will confirm with you that they pulled out all the stops! James even calls out the Ktulu in one song. Love it!
After that, we were wined and dined and plied with fireball shots before heading over to Webster Hall for the show. I galloped upstairs to find a great perch in the balcony so I could get video for Facebook, but for the life of me, I do not know why the first 7 minutes had no audio. (Poor reception in the venue perhaps?) But once it kicked it, I know I made many people very happy to be able to watch it on their phones and one friend actually pulled it up on his SmartTV. Anyhow, they performed “Moth Into Flame” and “Hardwired” from the new album, along with all the great ones we know and love from the band.It was just so amazing to be able to see them in a venue that wasn’t an arena!
Set List from setlist.fm:
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Breadfan(Budgie cover) (First time played live since 2013)
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Holier Than Thou(First time played live since 2013)
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Battery
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Harvester of Sorrow
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Fade to Black
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Moth Into Flame(Live Debut)
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Sad But True
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Orion(First time played live since 2014)
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One
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Master of Puppets
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For Whom the Bell Tolls
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Enter Sandman
- Encore:
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Whiskey in the Jar([traditional] cover)
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Hardwired
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Seek & Destroy
(Followed by very brief “The Frayed Bits of Insanity”)
RIP Cliff Burton
Sadly, yesterday was also the 30th anniversary of the death of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, who was killed in 1986 at the age of 24 in a bus crash while the band was touring in Sweden. Frontman James Hetfield reflected on the somber date in a new interview posted at the official Metallica website, saying, “I miss Cliff a lot. I think about him quite often. But it also makes me realize that, you know, he’s here in spirit. He’s not here physically, but there are people that are here physically, and let’s have some good times now.”
Hetfield admitted he and his bandmates avoided dealing with their grief for a long time, saying, “We drank a lot. And then when Cliff passed away, it was doubled, you know? Took twice as much to stuff it down. And (I) never, ever really grieved. We just went back out, started touring again, and that was supposedly the remedy to shake it off and to get back on the horse, all the clichés.”
Hetfield acknowledged it was his 2001 stint in rehab that finally allowed him to begin processing his grief over not just Burton, but also Hetfield’s late mother. The singer/guitarist remarked, “I think just by (opening up to the) memories . . . that’s how grieving is happening for me over a longer period of time.”
Burton was replaced a month after his death by bassist Jason Newsted, who stayed with the group until 2001. Robert Trujillo took over the bass spot in 2003. All three bass player, including Burton, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as Metallica members in 2009. Burton’s father attended the ceremony on behalf of his son.
At a January 2009 press conference announcing Metallica’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, James Hetfield was asked to speculate on what Burton would have thought of the induction: “I hate playing what-ifs. I love being here right now. You know, the spirit of Cliff lives in us, we take him everywhere we can, so I want to think that he would love this, the fact that Metallica is being recognized as something to reckon with.”
Burton was not Metallica’s first bass player: that honor belonged to Ron McGovney. But Burton caught the eye of Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich when they saw him play in a band called Trauma in his hometown of San Francisco. They asked him to join Metallica and he said he would only do it if the group relocated to the Bay Area, which they did. Burton, who played on Metallica’s first three studio albums, was renowned for his ferocious live presence and extended bass solos on songs like “Orion” and “Pulling Teeth.”
BTW: Metallica revealed during a town hall meeting for fans on Monday (Sep 26th) at Sirius/XM in New York City that the song “Murder One” from its forthcoming Hardwired… To Self-Destruct LP is a tribute to another fallen comrade, late Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister, with the track apparently using many Motorhead song titles in its lyrics. James Hetfield said, “Motorhead had a lot to do with Metallica sitting here right now. But just Lemmy as an entity, as kind of a father figure, he helped us a lot. He was unafraid. And he was a character. And he was himself. And we all respected that so much. He did his own thing to the last breath. No matter who you are, how could you not be inspired by that?” (thanks The Pulse Of Radio!)
And the other big band to have new music and a new tour is Green Day! They kicked off their promo run up to the release of Revolution Radio on Monday in Columbus, OH after delaying the start of their new tour by a few days so band and crew members could recover from an illness. According to Diffuser, the band opened its 25-song set with two songs from the new Revolution Radio album, current single “Bang Bang” and the title track.
Only one other cut from the new album made the set list, and that was “Ordinary World,” which appeared in the acoustic second encore just before “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life).” The rest of the set drew heavily from 1994’s Dookie and 2004’s American Idiot, with the band playing five and six songs respectively from those two classic records. The trio also reached back to their second album, Kerplunk!, for three numbers while ignoring 2012’s Uno!, Dos! and Tre! discs entirely.
Here’s the set list from the opening night of Green Day’s tour:
1. “Bang Bang”
2. “Revolution Radio”
3. “Know Your Enemy”
4. “Holiday”
5. “Letterbomb”
6. “Longview”
7. “2000 Light Years Away”
8. “Welcome To Paradise”
9. “Christie Road”
10. “Burnout”
11. “Scattered”
12. “Hitchin’ A Ride”
13. “Waiting”
14. “Are We The Waiting”
15. “St. Jimmy”
16. “When I Come Around”
17. “She”
18. “Basket Case”
19. “King For A Day”
20. “Shout” / “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” / “Hey Jude”
21. “Minority”
Encore 1:
22. “American Idiot”
23. “Jesus of Suburbia”
Encore 2 (acoustic):
24. “Ordinary World”
25. “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”
Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt told us how the band approaches its vast catalog these days when putting together its live set: “We try to keep it fun for ourselves, you know. We’ll mix it up if we feel like it’s getting too — you know, we don’t want to ever going through the motions ever, either, so you know, we won’t do it. We’ll stop in the middle of a set and go, ‘You know what? We’re gonna playDookie in its entirety.’ But you know, we just keep it fun. It definitely is a good problem to have, to have such a big discography.”
The concert also featured a medley of the Isley Brothers’ “Shout,” the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and the Beatles’ “Hey Jude.”
Green Day’s tour continues tonight (Sep 28th) in Sayreville, NJ. The band also announced the shows postponed from last week in St. Louis, Chicago and Detroit will now take place at the end of October. Revolution Radio comes out Oct 7th. The band will be in NYC next week! (Thanks Pulse Of Radio!)
Today Sully Erna stops by to talk about his new Hometown Life album, due on Friday. Looking forward to seeing my friend, even though he’s a Patriots’ fan. Ugh. (I always bust his cannolis about them!) Anyhow, be looking for a video interview with Sully soon.
Soundgarden: Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron, Chris Cornell, Ben Sheperd
The Pulse Of Radio also reporting today my good friend Full Metal Jackie (she’s getting married on Saturday!) interviewed Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil on her radio show on KLOS in Los Angeles about the state of the band’s next studio album, which will follow up 2012’s King Animal. Thayil explained, “Right now there are some other projects that are taking up band members’ time . . . Over the past year we’ve had a number of songwriting and jam sessions, Soundgarden, getting together to simply exchange ideas and document and record them. So we’ve had some rough demos of a dozen or so songs. We’ll continue to do this as everyone’s schedules open up. Hopefully next year we’ll find ourselves in the studio fleshing out these ideas.”
Thayil cited drummer Matt Cameron‘s other job as the drummer for Pearl Jam and Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell‘s solo tour as two projects that are taking up time, along with the Temple Of The Dog reunion tour that both Cornell and Cameron are part of.
Thayil mentioned that, following the recent reissue of several Soundgarden albums on vinyl, other projects are coming up as well. On the schedule are a 25th anniversary edition of 1991’s Badmotorfinger and a remixed version of the group’s first full-length disc, 1988’s Ultramega OK.
The guitarist told us that he and producer Jack Endino have been working for a couple of years on the latter project: “Jack and I have spent a lot of time remixing Ultramega OK, which, if you’ve ever read interviews with the band, nobody in the band was ever really happy with the mix. We always wanted Jack to remix it, and now it sounds bigger and warmer, it’s great.”
Soundgarden reunited in 2010 after a 13-year layoff, touring and then eventually writing new material that became the basis for 2012’s King Animal, its first new studio album in 16 years.
Temple Of The Dog, the legendary Seattle supergroup featuring members of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, begins a five-city trek on Nov 4th in Philadelphia. The outfit is hitting the road to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its self-titled 1991 album. A deluxe reissue of the disc arrived on Friday, Sep 30th.
Gotta dash. See you tomorrow!