Metallica takes musical stroll down memory lane
Band celebrating its 40th anniversary with tracks from nearly every album
Metallica celebrated its 40th anniversary in a very timely manner.
Timely, as in the legendary metal band literally rocked and rolled through its history during a show Friday at Chase Center in San Francisco.
The band delivered a setlist unlike any other in its storied career, touching upon each of its albums — in chronological order — as it thrilled the capacity crowd of approximately 17,000.
It was a triumphant showing for a band that has certainly had no shortage of them since getting its start in Los Angeles in 1981.
And fans are expecting yet another one when the multiplatinum-selling group — featuring drummer Lars Ulrich, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, bassist Robert Trujillo and vocalist-guitarist James Hetfield — performs again on today at the same venue.
The two sold-out Chase shows are the marquee events during the Metallica San Francisco Takeover, a four-day citywide celebration that runs through today and also includes a film festival, photo exhibit and curated lineup of smaller venue shows featuring other acts. One of those other acts, the Wedding Band, which also features Hammett and Trujillo, took the stage late Friday night at the Fillmore in San Francisco.
Metallica — which relocated to the Bay Area in 1983 after bassist and Castro Valley native Cliff Burton joined the band — warmed up the crowd with a slideshow of photos streamed on the many overhead screens.
The pictures took fans on a tour through the group’s unparalleled career, from playing small clubs to some of the biggest stages in the world, as — appropriately enough — AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)” blasted over the speakers.
Then came the band’s usual introduction number — Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” — only this time complete with a voiceover from “Aquaman” star Jason Momoa.
All of that had the crowd roaring even louder than before as Metallica finally took the stage and lit up “Hit the Lights,” which also happens to be the first cut on the band’s first album, 1983’s “Kill ’Em All.”
From that raucous opener, the group ventured right into it’s second studio album, 1984’s “Ride the Lightning” for a double shot of the longtime fan favorite “Creeping Death” and the seldom-played “Trapped Under Ice.”
Another doubleheader followed — this time from 1986’s magnificent “Master of Puppets,” Metallica’s third outing — as the band once again paired a concert staple (“Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”) with a relative obscurity (the amazing instrumental “Orion”).
About the time the group fired up 1988’s “... And Justice for All,” fans were probably starting to get wise to Metallica’s game plan for the evening. The quartet stayed the course as it revisited its fourth studio album, delivering the deep cut “The Shortest Straw” and then following up with the goldcertified single “One.”
Metallica veered a bit as it entered into the realm of its self-titled fifth studio album, which is more commonly known as “The Black Album.” This time, the band moved off the path of pairing a big track with a lesser-known cut as it doubled up on the hits with “Sad but True” and ‘Nothing Else Matters.” Perhaps today’s show will contain some of the lesserknown “Black Album” cuts.
The four musicians would move a bit more quickly through the rest of the catalog, rocking with “King Nothing” from 1996’s “Load” and then “Fixxxer” from “Reload” (1997 follow-up album). The latter was reportedly being played by the band for the first-time ever in concert.
The group then covered “Breadfan,” a track by the influential Welsh metal band Budgie that was featured on Metallica’s covers compilation “Garage Inc.” from 1998. It even remembered to touch upon the first “S&M” collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony and included “No Leaf Clover” in the mix.
Metallica included a strong version of “Frantic” from 2003’s “St. Anger,” but skipped over the critically panned collaboration with Lou Reed, “Lulu.”
Metallica closed the show in terrific fashion with a double shot of “The Day That Never Comes” (from 2008’s “Death Magnetic”) and “Spit Out the Bone” (from 2016’s amazing “Hardwired … to SelfDestruct”) before spending several minutes saying goodbye to fans and tossing out what appeared to be hundreds of picks as souvenirs to the audience.