Metallica Live at the Prudential Center, Newark NJ 1/31/09 Review

When Metallica tickets first went on sale I was sitting in a Dentist Office with my girlfriend (Dental Hygenist) in my mouth hoping and praying that my Mom would come through and get me tickets for the show. While having calculus scraped from my teeth with various sharp objects my phone began to vibrate, and at that moment I knew I was either going to be twice as miserable as I already was being that I was at the dentist, or as ecstatic as one could be while having a minature vacuum in my mouth along with tools with the sole purpose of bringing pain. To my dismay my Mom called to tell me that she wasn't able to read the numbers on my credit card that she was using to buy the tickets. I was trying to dig deep into my brain to recall the numbers I have typed into Amazon and PayPal so many times, but to no avail I was drawing a blank. I went home with a sore mouth and no Metallica tickets to boot. From that day on I was determined to get tickets by whatever means possible. From the day after the tickets went on sale to two days before the day of the show I checked Ticketmaster twice a day crossing my fingers that just maybe some extra tickets would be released. As you may have assumed, two days before the show Ticketmaster finally delivered a different message then the one I had read over and over again. I came accross two General Admission tickets, and with my heart pounding so fast I raced to my wallet and fumbled over my credit cards and typed away those magical numbers which my Mom was unable to read, and before I knew it, I was picking up my tickets at will call.

So with my personal story aside, now I can focus on the concert. Opening up for Metallica was The Sword and Machine Head. The Sword had put on a good show with some Sabbath-esque quality. Machine Head didn't exactly qualify as the kind of band I would listen to with their deep growls utilized more than singing, but if I was to put the music aside, they had a ton of energy and got the crowd ready for the reason everyone was there.

Metallica took the stage to "Ecstasy of Gold" as always and kicked right into "That Was Just Your Life", a song that bites with as much energy as "Blackened" and in my oppinion is the strongest track on the new album. All together they would pull six songs from Death Magnetic all of which transfered amazingly live. One of the higlights of the show came from the first single from Death Magnetic, "The Day that Never Comes". The performance of that song especially was filled with a ton of passion and a stellar guitar solo.

As Hetfield said during the show, "With the new stuff, we found what really goes well with the new stuff... Yes, the old stuff". Right after that line, the band went straight into an amazing rendition of "Ride the Lightning". They would go on to pull from every album besides the dreaded Load, Reload, and St. Anger.

The stage show was pretty impressive with large coffins coming down from the rafters lighting up the stage. The band, as expected, threw a good amount of pyro out during the introduction of "One" coinciding with the explosions and gun shots. During the solo on "One", out shot flames of every conceivable color getting the crowd amped. To top it off, the band unleashed the lasers at various moments during the show. During the finale, "Seek and Destroy", hundreds of enormous inflatable balls with Metallica's logo poured from the ceiling onto the crowd eventually ending up passed all around the arena and the majority ending up on stage. At the very end of the show the band walked around tossing out guitar picks and when Kirk came by me out came a dozen or so guitar picks and when I saw one fly right by me I dove on the ground and picked it up from the ground and smiled from ear to ear.

The band was firing on all cylandes the entire night, dishing out a set list to die for. Sure there was an abundance of Death Magnetic, but to their credit, the songs pulled from the album are incredible, and pieces like "That Was Just Your Life" and "The Day that Never Comes" match up to everything from their glory days. Being only about fifty feet from the stage, I could see every expresion on the bands face, and it was clear, that they were having a great time out there. This was my first time seeing Metallica, and quite honestly I'm a bit embarassed to say that, but after that experience, there is nothing that will stop me from seeing them again!

Setlist:

That Was Just Your Life
The End Of The Line
Ride The Lightning
For Whom the Bell Tolls
One
Broken, Beat And Scarred
Cyanide
Sad But True
...And Justice For All
All Nightmare Long
The Day That Never Comes
Master Of Puppets
Battery
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
- - - - - - - -
Blitzkrieg
Hit The Lights
Seek and Destroy