Thrash metal giants Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer packed in the metalheads at Yankee Stadium yesterday, but the much-heralded Big 4 concert was dominated by the monster hits and crushing riffs of the one and only Metallica.
Whispers of ‘The Big 4’ started over three years ago, as milestone anniversaries and Metallica’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction generated musings and fantasies about the band’s major contemporaries joining together for a concert or tour, at the time regarded as unlikely if only due to perceived bad blood between Metallica and Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine.
Fast forward to yesterday, September 14th, 2011, and the 50,000 strong crowd who poured into the Bronx for a lineup that seems as unbeatable as the Yankee’s own baseball records, enshrined in the cement walkways that lead to the Stadium. Bars along River Avenue blasted Metallica and Iron Maiden tracks as fans began massing and pregaming as early as noon, black t-shirts boasting of bands and tours of every rock and metal act imaginable. A heavy police presence, including officers in full riot gear, for once gelled well with the crowds, and local residents and merchants gamely embraced the metalhead culture that swarmed off the subways and parking garages that surround the iconic Bronx venue.
Doors to the show opened at 2pm, and there was a small but dedicated fanbase in place for Anthrax’s 4pm start. With Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. declaring ‘Anthrax Day’ in the Bronx, the only New York-based band out of the Big 4 took to the massive stage set up in center field with a gleeful abandon, wearing faux Yankee jerseys and t-shirts with their names on the backs (unlike the real Yankees).
Fans who attended Monday night’s Metal Masters Clinic at Best Buy Theater (read my review of it, with video of Phil Anselmo performing A New Level by clicking here) might have felt some déjà vu as Anthrax’s setlist was virtually identical, but that didn’t make the energy on songs like Caught in a Mosh and Anti-Social any less gripping. The band had much to celebrate, with their new album Worship Music freshly debuted the day before, singer Joey Belladonna back in the frontman position to rave reviews, and the band full of Yankee fans playing the venue of their dreams.
While traditionally opening acts are intentionally given poor sound mixing, there didn’t seem to be any of that at this unique concert full of headliners. Joey’s vocals sounded strong and clear and the guitar tones that blasted out across the field and stands at the Stadium were crisp and cutting, generating waves of headbangers as the seats slowly filled. The early weekday start time and tedious security procedures likely accounted for the somewhat disappointing size of the crowd, with fans complaining of hour-long waits to get through the gates and into their seats, and many people who arrived in the Bronx on time ended up missing most or all of Anthrax’s set as they waited to get in.
But those who were inside lived it up, a half dozen mosh pits opening up on the wide general admission section on the field during classic song Indians. The energy was raw and biting, and the hometown band lived up their hour of glory, Belladonna donning an NYPD hat for half the set, and guitarist Scott Ian taking a cross-borough jab, claiming that the show was originally supposed to be at the New York Mets’ Citifield stadium, but that the Big 4 couldn’t play at the home of losers. Treacherous words for the Bayside, Queens native, but the line went over well with the pin-striped crowd.
All too soon though, the band’s time was up and fans patiently waited for Megadeth, in some ways the red-headed stepchild of the Big 4. Singer Dave Mustaine wrote much of Metallica’s first album before being fired from that band, and Megadeth is generally either loved or loathed by metal fans, with little room for tolerance in between. The sharp-tongued Mustaine publicly held a grudge against both Metallica and Slayer’s Kerry King for years, but with the advent of the Big 4 shows, all seems to have been forgiven, and as the man arguably most responsible for the American thrash metal sound that the Big 4 represents, Megadeth’s set was a crucial cog in the night’s celebrations.
Mid-tempo radio hit Trust was chosen as the opening song, an odd choice for a show celebrating thrash metal, but with fans now pouring into the Stadium, it was a catchy way to get started. The band exploded with the next track though, as Mustaine and lead guitarist Chris Broderick traded off leads on Hanger 18’s explosive solos. At times the sound grew a little muddled as the PA system struggled with the impossibly high guitar tones, but the sheer volume and ferocity of Megadeth’s guitar attacks easily drove the crowd to raging mosh pits and pumping fists.
Mustaine picked a hit-filled, crowd-pleasing setlist for the most part, in addition to new song Public Enemy #1 off upcoming album ThIrt3en and the Stadium warmly sang along on power ballad A Tout Le Monde. Even non-fans then blasted into life on the following song, screaming along “Sweating Bullets!” on that track’s chorus, easily a highlight of the day.
The set was tempered by Mustaine’s on-stage announcement that he had been hospitalized as recently as the day before and will need to undergo neck surgery, but whatever is ailing the frontman didn’t seem to affect his performance. More sing-alongs followed with the catchy Peace Sells and Symphony of Destruction, and the crowd roared as a lone fan jumped the front wall of the stands and bolted for the general admission section in the outfield as the Holy Wars solo peaked. With security officers racing after him, if he’d veered another 20 feet to his left he may very well have successfully made it over a single barricade and blended into the pits, but instead he ran smack into three more guards who took him down hard in a glorious heavy metal concert moment.
With two bands down, the attitude and anticipation filling the Stadium began to grow. Slayer took the stage at dusk, and what had until then been a light-hearted enjoyment of music suddenly turned delightfully dark and evil. Unlike the other Big 4 bands, Slayer has never written a ballad, nor a radio song, or even attempted to sing melodically. Slayer is pure, unadulterated musical brutality, and they opened with Disciple, singer Tom Araya roaring “God hates us all!” to set the tone for their entire set.
A Slayer show is like getting pounded over the head repeatedly with a sonic sledgehammer, and pound away Slayer did. There were no song introductions, little stage banter, or even any acknowledgement of the historical nature of the concert like Anthrax and Megadeth had done. The band simply blasted through songs like War Ensemble, Mandatory Suicide, and Dead Skin Mask with the methodical pace of an army destroying all in its path, aided by Exodus guitarist Gary Holt doing a standout job of subbing for Jeff Hanneman, who is currently sidelined by injury.
Fans in both the pits and the stands broke out into furious headbanging from the first blast beats of Disciple, but midway through the set the energy level of the crowd seemed to be fading, even as the band blasted away relentlessly. It might have been the emerging darkness, or weariness from rocking out to Anthrax and Megadeth, or simply that by now the majority of the fans filling the Stadium were there to see Metallica and unfamiliar with most Slayer songs, but it was mildly surprising to see many people in the stands sitting or standing quietly, even as three large circle pits raged on the field.
All that changed though, at the haunting tones of South of Heaven, which rang out like a wakeup call in the cool night air. The crowd headbanged as one to the slower-paced song, and then grew even more enthusiastic as it was followed by classic track Raining Blood. Slayer’s set ended with Angel of Death, and a stunned silence followed as the house lights came up and fans emerged from what would be the most intensively brutal and unrelenting performance of the night.
But even as everyone caught their breath and went for a stroll to stretch their legs or buy more beers, an aura of excitement slowly grew in the hallways, stairwell, and bathroom lines. Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax have all played two or more shows in the New York region in the past year, with all three bands featured together on last October’s Jagermeister Tour (read my review of that crushing show here), but Metallica has not been anywhere near NYC since the end of 2009, when they played two nights at Madison Square Garden (review here). While Wednesday night’s first three acts all put on raging, skull-rattling performances of the highest caliber, there was one reason fans were filling the revered home of the New York Yankees instead of a local arena, and that reason is named Metallica.
Metallica is the reason casual music fans even know that the genre of heavy metal exists. Metallica is the reason radio stations and cable music channels use any resources on metal programming. Metallica is the force behind countless inspired musicians, workout routines, and drivers doing 90 mph down a stretch of highway, and Metallica was the reason that 50,000 heavy metal fans were invited into Yankee Stadium to rock out, and Metallica more than lived up to expectations.
Fans around the massive open air Stadium cheered and whistled wildly as the chilling Ecstasy of Gold intro music played, something that never fails to send shivers through the spine of anyone who’s seen Metallica before and is now hard-wired to the score from The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly. There was perhaps a few seconds of absolute silence once it ended, and then the night exploded into Creeping Death, a perfect opening for the world’s biggest metal band.
James Hetfield sounded right on point as he raced through the biblical thrasher’s vocals, effortlessly singing as he and Kirk Hammett blasted through the tight guitar riffs. Hetfield urged the crowd to sing for him, and thousands of voices sang as one on the booming chorus, followed by Hammett’s flashy guitar solo, leading, as it always does, higher and higher up the musical scale until peaking and dropping into the world’s most fearsome drum n’ bass breakdown. Fans chanted “Die! Die! Die!” in rhythm, absolutely letting loose in every corner of Yankee Stadium, and mosh pits churning with reckless abandon as Metallica easily seized control of their crowd.
The 2011 Metallica is certainly different from the band that wrote songs like Harvester of Sorrows, partied relentlessly, and spent record after record screaming about death and destruction. But Hetfield, Hammett, drummer Lars Ulrich and bassist Rob Trujillo are as tight and powerful as ever, and the music has never sounded so good. With a gigantic widescreen video panel above the stage supplementing the pair of screens on either side, even fans up in the upper deck or back at home plate could see crisp, high definition close ups of the band members, though the video feed was a second or two out of sync with the music blasting out of towering rigs of amplifiers.
The night’s setlist was virtually identical to the one Metallica played at the California Big 4 show in Indio, but even fans who attended both couldn’t possibly have cared. Songs like For Whom The Bell Tolls, Fuel, and Ride the Lightening are simply so electrifying that security and venue personnel were bobbing their heads to the hard-hitting riffs even as they assisted fans, and when James shouted “you sing it!” the entire crowd roared the chorus louder than the Yankee’s sound system could have reproduced.
What made Metallica stand out beyond their Big 4 peers, however, was not how loud or how angry they were, but rather songs like Fade to Black, the beautiful, semi-acoustic ballad that had fans swaying in their seats and holding up lighters. The guitar tones on Hammett’s solo were so stunning, almost heartbreaking in their earnestness, that his solo could’ve melted the hardest steel with its electric beauty; likewise the instrumental Orion served as a gentle ode to the memory of late bassist Cliff Burton. Even a pair of new songs from the Death Magnetic album couldn’t subdue the wellspring of positive energy and excitement that Metallica and their songs create when they’re on the stage, and last night, Metallica firmly, utterly, owned their stage.
The band also brought some fun surprises along to impress the New York crowd. Fireworks and pyrotechnics lit up the stage during One, easily one of Metallica’s finest songs, and the video screens showed the picture in black and white, likely as a nod to the song’s monochrome music video. Even the press box, where this Examiner was enjoying the show, erupted into furious headbanging and screaming on One’s climactic double bass breakdown.
Master of Puppets proved to be another highlight, and astute fans might have noticed James screaming “Pancakes!” instead of “Fix me” right before the solo, as Anthrax’s Charlie Benante explained to me when we spoke a few weeks ago. Multi-colored lasers swept all levels of the Stadium in a dazzling display during Blackened, forcing even the most hardcore metal fans to ooh and ahh at the bright, stunning show.
The gentle, moving Nothing Else Matters led to a rousing Enter Sandman, a song that’s no stranger to Mariano Rivera’s home stadium, and all of a sudden the night was nearing its end. But first, as has become tradition, members of the other bands flooded the stage for a ‘Big 4 group jam,’ which James assured the crowd would not be Am I Evil for a change. Instead, it was Motorhead’s Overkill, a fast punky thrasher also on the Garage, Inc album. There seemed to be some confusion though, as Dave Mustaine was nowhere to be seen, one would assume due to his medical condition, but either James was unaware or forgot, leaving no one singing the second verse, and only two vocalists overall, as Slayer's Tom Araya generally declines to participate. Nonetheless, the jam turned out to be the best yet, as the irrepressible Benante, grinning broadly behind Lars’ drum kit, kept returning to the pre-solo drum intro, forcing the whole group to jam through the solo no less than three additional times.
The final two songs of the night were as epic as the first fifteen, Battery turning out to be the only deviance from the Indio setlist (but a welcome one), and tried and true show closer Seek & Destroy as fun as ever, as ground crew members threw giant black beach balls into the pits for the night’s final tune. Not even a hint of weariness could be detected as the crowd shouted along to the anthem, each scream of “seek and DESTROY!” louder than the last.
And then, it was all over. Fans streamed out of the stands, while those on the field lingered to cheer for Hetfield & his bandmates as they took a group bow and thanked everyone for coming out. The closed-off streets around Yankee Stadium quickly filled with tired but happy metalheads still singing their favorite songs, and the long-anticipated, heavily-hyped Big 4 concert had come and gone, more than living up to expectations.
While to an average music fan, yesterday might have seemed like just four random heavy metal bands sharing a bill, to longtime fans, it was almost a schematic of thrash history. Take Anthrax’s fun, blue collar hard rock mentality, mix it with Megadeth’s technical musical prowess, add in Slayer’s utterly ferocious, uncompromising violence and nihilism, and you have Metallica, the only band in the world with an equal mastery of acoustic ballads, death-obsessed thrashers, and good old-fashioned rock radio anthems, and doing all three of those things better than any other band.
From the ten year old fan proudly singing next to his brothers and father to the handicapped fan fearlessly crowdsurfing in his wheelchair, the Big 4 show brought out the absolute best of the heavy metal world, for the best bands in the heavy metal world. New Yorkers who were there will remember it forever; those who weren’t will regret it forever. This one-off event was the concert event of a lifetime, and will be THE show against which any future festivals or tours are compared.
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