Ride the Lightning: Blitz and Metallica in Basel's St.Jakob-Park, the concert review

In August 1991, the elite of hard guitar sounds honored Basel as part of the "Monsters of Rock" and the name became a program for 50 metal fans! At that time, Metallica swept through the Joggeli with (now banned) 000 decibels, so that the main act AC/DC seemed like a mild breeze despite Angus Young limping around wildly and a great show. Legends say that Metallica could still be heard in Rodersdorf, 110 kilometers away. After more than 20 years, Metallica returned to Basel in the sold-out St. Jakob-Park on Friday and made 20 fans euphoric - and conjured up a dramatic change in the weather. So the show started in bright sunshine and literally ended in a little storm. However, the spectators did not seem to be bothered by the thunderstorm in the slightest, on the contrary: it was as if they were electrifying the thunder and lightning even more!

After the absolute mud fight on Sonisphere 2010 in Jonschwil, the organizational chaos that ultimately drove the organizer into bankruptcy on Sonisphere 2011, also in the Joggeli in Basel, and the Sonisphere 2012 in Yverdon les Bains, finally an all-round successful event with Metallica, Motörhead and Slayer, the Sonisphere 2014 took place last Friday in Basel's FCB St. Jakobs Park, with Kvelertak, Airbourne, Alice in Chains and Metallica. Metallica in Sankt Jakob, that is an event with history. The American quartet last performed here in 1993, the tour based on the so-called black album, which catapulted the band from the top of the heavy metal scene into the ranks of stadium bands, and they have been there ever since - despite weak albums , Line-up changes, alcohol problems and a documentary film that showed the band with a therapist dissecting their own psyche. After Black's album, Metallica was dead and sold out for me personally and the Napster affair confirmed my thinking. But there was nothing that could permanently damage the band-fan relationship and I, too, could forgive the gentlemen and got a taste for it with St. Anger.

Metallica live in Basel Switzerland July 4th 2014 - Ecstasy of Gold / Battery

The crowd on Friday was clearly black, as it should be at a Metal(lica) concert. But it quickly became clear that there was also a lot of mainstream going on here: visitors with checked shirts and beige shorts, people with blow-dried haircuts and men and women in Germany jerseys – which is not possible at a metal concert. Be that as it may, the main thing is that the technology is right and we didn't spill it, we splurged and really: The stage weighs 110 tons, around 14 kilometers of cable were laid, 1200 people are on duty on the day of the tour and 55 40-ton trucks carted the material approach. Two 60-ton crane trucks and seven forklifts were in constant use, 312-metre trusses were installed and eleven Nightliners brought the musicians and crew to the scene. How did a band that plays such heavy music become one of the biggest rock bands ever? Just for comparison: Slayer and Anthrax, who together with Megadeth and Metallica have formed the "Big Four" of thrash metal since the 7's, performed together a month ago at the Z1500 in Pratteln in front of XNUMX people. In contrast to their companions, Metallica wrote melodic and balladesque pieces early on, but that alone cannot explain why tens of thousands flock to Metallica concerts. There must be another reason for this and that is James Hetfield. He is one of the few frontmen who can fill a stadium with their aura. He stands there, legs apart, present and with buddy-like authority leaves no doubt as to who is in charge here.

The opening acts Kvelertak, Airbourne and Alice in Chains could still work hard: The metal kings were in town and made everything else fade! Up until Metallica, the sound in the entire stadium was complete porridge and didn't do the bands justice. A pity! But when Metallica started after a short conversion phase, the sound was extremely fat! The well-tried intro of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" got the crowd going wild more than any song performed up to that point. The large stadium clock was covered with a black cloth and the high-speed attack "Battery" from 1986 resounded from the stage. It seemed as if Metallica wanted to stop time. At the latest with the seamlessly appended "Master of Puppets" from the same year, Metallica sounded significantly better than before six years ago in Jonschwil. Hands went up to the back rows and the band kept banging out one board after the other. Bassist Robert Trujillo has been "new" for ten years, having immediately carved his place in the band's dense frequency spectrum, and the metallic growl of his five-string remained audible even when Hetfield and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett pumped heavy riffs, such as in the merciless «Ride the Lightning».

Metallica live in Basel Switzerland July 4 2014 - Master of Puppets (Sonisphere)

The crowd eagerly awaited the titles, which could be selected in advance via online voting. "Metallica by Request" is the motto of the current tour, which means that the set list is determined and published in the run-up to each gig by votes cast by fans over the Internet. Service to the paying customer, because anyone who has such masses in front of them must not take artistic liberties, but must provide entertainment. The fan wants to hear hits, because he spends money for that and accepts completely overcrowded extra trains with far too few toilets for the journey. Unfortunately, not the entire set list was determined via online voting: During the concert, the audience was repeatedly asked to vote via SMS between three songs that were still open. Of course, for 80 centimes per vote, which at times made the event drift into a really greasy sales show.

Thus, the performance of Metallica moved between a routine concert and an absolutely borderline sales show. It's a miracle you couldn't enter an SMS competition with stupid questions in the style of modern TV shows. This superfluous audience interaction for voting was extremely annoying, so the band members addressed the fans via video before the actual gig to ask them to "vote". But that's not all, James Hetfield insisted on pointing out this voting option again and again during the performance, whereby he repeatedly presented the very tight intermediate result using a chic bar chart and asked the fans to "do their best" - what was probably meant: your money. And even if Metallica played their fill in Basel, not every fan was perfectly happy at this request concert. In view of the pandering sell-out show, one wished the evil troupe back from the times before the black album, they at least had a deep black soul.

Metallica live in Basel Switzerland July 4 2014 - One

Apart from these disruptive interruptions, Metallica showed their usual routine during the two and a half hour show. Accompanied by successful visuals and video clips that ran over the LED wall, the band from the Bay Area in California shot the desired set list almost flawlessly right into the last corner of the stadium. Metallica played what the audience wanted and delivered solid work with no fuss. The four guys from San Francisco played the 16 most requested songs and delivered "Metallica to order". The sound was outstanding, especially the pieces from the early years rely on overwhelming walls of sound. A more than 360 square meter LED wall hung across the entire width of the stage, on which not only recordings of the musicians from four different camera perspectives could be seen, soldiers and skeletons marched up, blood dripped and it was a perfectly coordinated production required. The light show was breathtaking, drawing crazy patterns on the stands, sawing through the stage with glaring laser beams and transforming the crowd into a blood-red sea, from which only James Hetfield stood out white. He was always looking for contact with the fans, in between his dirty laugh - even if that came across a bit too rehearsed, the master let the puppets dance and again and again it went from the 56 meter wide stage to the catwalk in the crowds.

When Metallica played the only new song of the evening, it started: under the cover of darkness, a storm front had pushed over the Joggeli, which now opened the floodgates. The first performance of the song, which may appear on the new album, fell through completely. "Lords Of Summer" isn't that bad. With a gallop rhythm and the changes to heavy halftime, Metallica are close to plagiarizing themselves. Anyway, time to get some beer supplies which some efforts have been made to ensure throughout the week. Three articulated lorries with a total of 400 pallets of liquid were ready in the stadium. Five refrigerated trucks and another five cooling cells cooled the drinks to five degrees, and 50 flow-through coolers – as the mobile stands are called in technical jargon – were installed in addition to the existing stands in the stadium. In addition, it was not without a certain irony that precisely after this battle cry a rain shower poured from the sky for the summer. After all, Hetfield knew how to use the sudden change in weather and stood on the ramp in the pouring rain for the entire duration of "Sad but True". This is solidarity with the fans, who sang along to the heart of the catchy verses of the massive shuffle. And not only Hetfield, but also guitarist Kirk Hammet and bassist Robert Trujillo were regularly on the jetty and didn't leave the fans alone in the rain, but stood with them in the rain and accelerated so much that even the lightning that flashed over the St .Jakob Park twitched, were part of the staging.

Metallica live in Basel Switzerland July 4 2014 - Lords of Summer (Sonisphere)

During their performance, Metallica repeatedly underlined their closeness to the fans, who consider them part of the "Metallica family" or the fifth band member. This was also expressed by the fact that some fans were allowed to stand at the edge of the stage throughout the show. Somehow I miss the snotty, all "Love, Peace and Happiness", the frontman seems tamed. There's no denying that there's a different man on the stage than two decades ago. While he had a rather menacing, dark aura back then, Hetfield now seems chummy. Roughly as often as he did in the songs "Die!" or "Kill!" screams - and that's by no means rare, Hetfield often announces "Metallica loves you, Basel" in his announcements. I find it difficult not to see a contradiction in this. Hetfield can demonstratively stand in the rain for so long. Lightning flashed across the sky throughout the performance and Hetfield, Hammet and especially Trujillo thumped their instruments undeterred. That's why this genre is called Thrash Metal. Thrash with H. Not trash, because this isn't trash, it's a shredder that shreds and crushes all the trash that messes up your life until all that's left is a feeling of numbness and salvation. Good Thrash Metal feels like meditation, or something like that...

Only towards the end did «Nothing Else Matters» come and immediately afterwards «Enter Sandman». The audience was never left behind and they really hung in on these songs. Hetfield would have the "Sing it!" save before the chorus, the Metallica crowd joined in and with an enthusiasm that even the endorphin-accustomed FCB stadium rarely experiences. «St. Anger» opened the encores, a comparatively new piece that is probably one of the heavier in the band's history. The gentlemen then played the song chosen by SMS, in Basel the audience decided on "Orion" until "Seek & Destroy" was released. There was another flash of lightning in the sky, then the band said goodbye. Metallica played the last track shortly after eleven, while every available lamp in the stadium was already on. That was probably not because they wanted to show the musicians their sodden audience, but because the curfew in Basel also applies to rock gods.

Metallica almost gone with the wind - Heavy thunderstorm hitting during "Sad But True"

All in all, it remains to be said: Stop Metallica. Two and a half hours world class. After more than 30 years on stage, the four exceptional musicians are not only technically unbeatable, they also seemed to be having a really good day in Basel. At least they gave the impression that they were into every song they played. And how they played them: Hetfield changed his guitars more times than other people change their knickers in a week. In addition, there was a simply outstanding sound, massive, cutting, crystal clear, absolutely pure with the ballads, which the band skillfully mixed between the thrashy songs and took the breath out of it to immediately step on the gas again. After all, the fact that the fans are allowed to redefine the song selection every night of the "By Request" tour is not much more than a publicity stunt. Ultimately, in this online voting, mass taste always prevails over insider wishes. In view of the voting results, a major German metal magazine recently headlined "You Bored!" and meant the fans. However, it will be interesting to see what else the marketing department of the band around James Hetfield will come up with. After Metallica recently played a gig in Antarctica (Antarctica), which attracted media attention, everything seems to be possible in terms of marketing. Here are some suggestions: "Titanica - Drown'em all" or "Desertica - Meet the Sandman". It can be voted on.

setlist:

1. Battery
2. Master of puppets
3. Welcome home (sanitarium)
4. Ride the lightning
5. The Unforgiven
6. Creeping death
7. Lords of Summer
8. Sad but true
9. Fade to Black
10. ... And Justice for all
11. One
12. For whom the Bell is great
13. Whiskey in the jar
14. Nothing else matters
15. Enter Sandman

Encore:

16. St Anger
17. Orion
18. Seek & Destroy

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