Sadness Is Delicious

Metallica, 2/1/09

Last Sunday, Metallica played the final date of their US Death Magnetic tour at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ (“where it all began,” according to Lars as he was hamming it up after the encore). My friend, Chris Weingarten, and I had seats in the 21st row, which is the perfect to be at a big concert like this. The Super Bowl was also that night, but really, Metallica or Super Bowl, what would you do? I’d much rather hear “Master of Puppets” and take iPhone shots like this:

The band was as big-rock as it gets, not that I expected anything less. They had coffin-shaped lighting fixtures. They had lasers. They had fire you could feel in the 21st row (which Jaymz understandably avoided—at one point he just got on Larz’s drum riser with him until the fire was done.) Perhaps the biggest rock aspect of the show, though, was the fact the band played in the round. This made each member prowl the stage like animals looking to find a home every 15 seconds (save Lars, whose drum riser gradually rotated a full 360 degrees).

Song highlights included “Creeping Death” (during which Hetfield wryly said, “Creep on, Mr. Hammett” right before the solos), “Blackened” and “Breadfan.”

During the closer, “Seek and Destroy,” about a hundred black balls fell from the ceiling, each emblazoned with the band’s logo like a spherical “Black Album” cover… sort of. Watching fans smuggle these giant beach balls out of the place was a post-show highlight. When everyone was clambering to squeeze on the PATH and NJ Transit trains home, fans were struggling to deflate these balls to take them home. You know you’ve had a good night, when you don’t know what to do with your balls.

Here’s the setlist:

That Was Just Your Life
The End of the Line
Creeping Death
Harvester of Sorrow
One
Broken, Beat & Scarred
Cyanide
Sad but True
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
All Nightmare Long
Kirk Solo #1
The Day That Never Comes
Master Of Puppets
Blackened
Kirk Solo #2
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
----Encore-------
Die Die My Darling
Breadfan
Seek and Destroy

Oh*, and here’s a video of the opener…

*With apologies to Machine Head