Ok so this isn’t really a review of the entire box set. Truth be told I’ve hated everything the’ve done since 1989. To me that’s about the time they stopped being influenced by the “new wave of british heavy metal” and started down the sad road of blues rock. But there was an inclusion of a 1989 Professionally shot concert in this box set that I had always wanted to see. This was the same year I saw Metallica do a proper concert @ the Frankfurt mesthalle. Prior to that I had only seen them do a brief set during a Monster of Rock performance where they were promoting the 5.98 EP and introducing the world to their new bass player Jason Newsted.
So yeah somebody I knew bought the box set and so I got the opportunity to finally check it out. Once again this review can fit both FCO & the N=D blogs, let's start.
A couple of things I noticed while watching: 1.) at one point Metallica was actually a good band and this was either the pinnacle or the trailing off period, I’m still undecided on this since I never saw them during the Cliff Days except for via the horrible bootleg videos on the Cliff’em All vhs and 2.) James Hetfield used to have a different voice than he does now. It used to be sort of growly and metallic sounding and now it’s sort of clear and whiney. Maybe the big influence Danzig had on the band (including the Justice era look) pushed them down that bluesy, clear voiced Hetfield people such as myself have grown to hate on. Things I recall about the concert I went to in 89 and this video didn’t mesh. Jason Newsted gets two bass solos and a lot of liberties on the microphone, including an entire verse of ‘Whiplash’. Hammet’s guitar solos are really sloppy here as well. I’m not sure if that’s always the case or not but while not downright bad, the solos are kind of rough spots on this video (besides Newsted on the mica microphone that is). Granted most of the songs from Justice sort of bring the performance down because they are too long, part of Metallica’s rebellion against playing 3 minute pop songs but they make up for it with great execution of some songs from Kill em All, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets, as well as some covers like Last Caress and Budgie’s Bread Fan. All in all if you liked Metallica this is a great reminder of how horrible they are now and maybe somebody could convince Hetfield to ditch the others and go solo and it’s a fun watch if you were ever a fan of theirs. The quick editing gets a bit annoying though…so be warned.
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