It was on August 18th, 2012 that I saw Metallica play the second night of a two night stand in Edmonton at Rexall Place. These two shows were filmed for live footage for the film they released the following year called Through The Never. Metallica also performed two shows in Vancouver for this film.
My ticket stub from the first time I saw Metallica in concert. This was on December 16th, 1986 at the Edmonton Convention Centre with Metal Church opening. A wicked double bill of thrash metal. Metallica were on their Damage Inc. Tour promoting the album Master Of Puppets. Only two and half months after the death of Cliff Burton.
So after a day of rest after the first night of the Metallica No Repeat Weekend, it was time for night two of Metallica at Commonwealth Stadium. Thank goodness for the day between, as an older guy I need a rest nowadays. And the weather was awful on Saturday. Man did we luck out with the weather for the two shows in Edmonton.
When Nazz and I finally got tickets for the pair of weekend shows, we had said we need to find a way to get Snake Pit Passes for one of the shows. Well, as luck would have it! On Thursday when i took the day off from work to do the pop up Metallica store thing, I got home from my adventure and was checking my emails, as I had entered 4 contests though the Metallica website, being a fifth member of the Metallica club, ya that's what they call you when you sign up for their newsletter. The four contetss were for a meet and greet with the band and a chance to win Snake Pit Passes for the two Edmonton shows. Well after three emails back from Metallica saying I was not a winner, imagine my surprise when on the last email I got this...
Holy fuck! I had won Snake Pit Passes for the Sunday show. To say I was excited would be an understatement. I was like a little kid on Christmas morning. I instantly texted my buddy and told him we had pulled it off, we were going to be in the Snake Pit for the Sunday show. Mission accomplished! If you don't know what Snake Pit Passes are, well, they are seats (ok not seats as there are none) but you are in the middle of the stage for the concert. That's as close as you are going to get to see Metallica and the opening acts.
The day of the show was another beautiful day for an outdoor show with it being in the high 20's Celsius. Nazz and I headed to the show early as we had to go to will call to pick up our passes and we wanted to make sure we didn't miss the openers and wanted to get familiar with the pit and such. Had no issues getting our passes or getting into the venue. And gave us lots of time for drinks and a get a feeling for the pit.
One of the first things we noticed outside the venue were people in the line up wearing weird make up, like zombie make up or something. Ok that's different, must have something to do with one of the opening acts. And we were right, I guess people dress up for the first act of the day, a band called Ice Nine Kills.
By the time the first band came on, which was Ice Nine Kills, there was a good crowd in the stadium already. Not as many as Friday night, but still a good crowd. I knew nothing about this band, had heard the name before but had never heard the music or anything (and for good reason). Ice Nine Kills is a metal band from Boston who's lyrics are horror inspired. Hence the zombie make up worn by their fans. Well this might be interesting, so we headed down to the snake pit to catch the openers. The first thing you will notice with this band was the theatrics, lead singer in a mask and a couple of guys running around the stage with fake chainsaws. Lots of cheap theatrics, chainsaws and a dummy that they cut the head off, with the lead singer walking around the stage with said cutoff head, it was all really kind of stupid and the theatrics really weren't very good. And the music, well let's just say it wasn't inspiring or very good. Didn't care for them, thankfully their set was only about a half hour or so.
Next up was the Las Vegas band Five Finger Death Punch. Another band I knew little about, and again for good reason. Nazz and I both thought very little of this band and went for a smoke and get some beers. Those fans that did like them surely enjoyed themselves, but not for us. Just felt like very boring modern metal, Blah!
After seeing a bit of the two opening bands, it was now time for the mighty Metallica from the Snake Pit. This would be my 11th time seeing Metallica in concert and second time being in the Snake Pit. The first time being in 1992 at the Saddledome in Calgary. This time it was on a much bigger scale. Some cool to go from the upper deck at Commonwealth Stadium to being in the middle of the stage for Metallica. Nazz and I were some stoked to be so lucky as to witness these two shows from very different perspectives.
Again, by the time Metallica hit the stage the stadium was packed with 55-60,000 metal heads ready to lose their shit. And with the band opening with "Whiplash" from their debut album Kill em' All the crowd were thrashing all around and acting like maniacs. What an awesome opening song and so fucking cool to be that close to the band witnessing them ripping it up. The sound was awesome in the Snake Pit, as it was Friday night in the upper deck. Metallica know what the hell they are doing that's for sure. After the opening song they played two songs from their second album, starting with "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and then into the title song "Ride The Lightning". Just like night one, the first three songs kicked ass. Then came the lull of three songs one from Load "Until It Sleeps" and then a couple from their latest album 72 Seasons. Again the new stuff sounds good live and people were digging it.
Then bassist Rob Trujillo and guitarist Kirk Hammett did their little jam thing, this time playing some of the Rush song "Working Man" which really wasn't very good. After that it was back into the good shit with "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" followed by "Wherever I May Roam", the band was sounding great with James Hetfield belting it out and Lars Ulrich on drums playing super well. I don't understand why Lars sometimes gets a bad rap as a drummer, but watching him up close, like we were, he was fucking awesome! Like night one, Metallica did another instrumental, this time from the Ride The Lightning album "The Call of Ktulu" dedicated to Cliff Burton. I love that Metallica still honour Cliff, and you can just tell from when James says "dedicated to Cliff" that this band really miss the man. Long live Cliff Burton!
After that it was the song I was really dreading, and with the band not playing it Friday night, I just knew they had to play in tonight, ughhhh "The Unforgiven", ok good time to take a piss, have a smoke and grab a beer. Now I was ready for the last third of the show. A few songs into the last third was "Fight Fire With Fire", yet another from Ride The Lightning, anyone keeping score, this was the fourth song from that album, which was fine by me. Closing out the show with "One" and "Enter Sandman", no encores either night. With Metallica playing in the round, it was awesome to see how the whole band can command the stage and know how to work it, spending equal time on each part of the stage and playing not only to the huge crowd in the stands but also playing to us in the Snake Pit. Metallica know what the hell they are doing, no backing tracks, actually playing live with mistakes and all.
At the end of the show the band walk around the stage throwing out cups full of guitar picks and thanking the audience. While, I'm a little slow and don't have the reflexes I used to, I didn't catch any picks. My buddy Nazz caught a few from Kirk Hammett, some actual used picks that Kirk had played with, in which he was nice enough to give me one. Thanks Nazz! But not only that, a younger kid beside me at the show asked me if I had got a pick. He had probably seen how slow and feeble I was at getting a pick. But this kid out of the kindness of his heart he gave me a Robert Trujillo bass pick. Whoever you were, thanks so much!
What an amazing weekend with my buddy Nazz and Metallica. Good fucking times!!!
Pics from The Pit.
The two Metallica shows at Commonwealth Stadium on the Friday and Sunday were announced back in December 2022, more then a year and a half in advance. I'm not sure if I have ever had tickets for a show that far in advance, and I wasn't about to do it for this show. Nazz and I both wanted to go to these shows but weren't gonna put our money out that far in advance, and we both said we wouldn't pay more then a hundred dollars per show. Of course tickets were expensive when they went on sale. When the shows got within four months of the date, I started watching for tickets. Again, wasn't spending more then a hundred bucks. For the longest time the Friday tickets were more expensive then the Sunday show. Makes sense as Friday's line up was better and it's a Friday. I saw single day tickets for 137 dollars for a long time but wasn't gonna bite. I was keeping to my promise. Of course these cheaper tickets were in the upper bowl of the stadium which was fine by us, as we just wanted to be there. We'd find a way to get closer. Well in early June I finally found 92 dollar tickets for the Friday show, so I got Nazz and I tickets. The weird thing with buying single day tickets, it was cheaper to buy two single day tickets then buying the two day tickets. That makes absolutely no sense. Anyways, I got Friday tickets and told Nazz, he can get the Sunday tickets. Now jump to early July and my buddy Naxx text's me while I am in Vancouver for The Stones concert and asks me "what day was I supposed to get Metallica tickets for? Please say it was Sunday" luckily for him he did buy the proper days tickets, here is the fucked up thing. he got us two tickets for the Sunday an they were the exact say same seats I had got us for the Friday night show. He didn't have the Friday tickets so he had no idea where we were sitting. But out of 60,000 tickets he gets us the exact same seats, same section, row and seats, unfuckingreal! So now we are set for both nights, and, by buying single day tickets we saved ourselves fifty bucks per ticket. So weird.
On the Thursday before the shows Metallica had a pop up store open all weekend selling all kinds of merchandise including exclusive pop up store items like the limited edition poster, t-shirts and vinyl. So Ii took the day off work and went and lined up with hundreds of others. I got there two hours before the store opened and there were already a couple hundred people in front of me. It sucked having to line up that long but it beat the hell out of lining up at the show for that long and missing good part of the show. So I sucked it up and lined up, it was good company though as I had a few interesting conversations with other Metallica fans. The time actually went pretty quick.
I picked up a couple t-shirts for myself and one for Nazz, and I got Nazz a copy of the limited edition splatter 72 Seasons vinyl.
The exclusive pop up store Edmonton t-shirt.
Front.
Back.
And I also picked up just the regular tour shirt as well.
Front.
Back.
Now having the merchandise already purchased we had nothing to worry about for the day of the show.
So on Friday my buddy Nazz picked me for the show, we were sure to be at Commonwealth Stadium early as we didn't want to miss either of the opening acts, them being Mammoth and Pantera. Doors opened at 4 pm and we were inside by 4:30. Plenty of time to get some beers and walk around a bit, couple of smokes and find our seats, which were in the upper deck of the stadium. But because of the set up for this show, with the stage in the middle of the stadium, and the speakers and screens way u above the stage, there really wasn't a bad seat in the place.
At 6 pm the first band of the weekend hit the stage, and that would be Mammoth WVH, whom is lead by Wolfgang Van Halen, the son of Eddie Van Halen. I was looking forward to seeing Mammoth in concert and hearing songs from his two albums released so far. And he and his band did not disappoint. Their sound is very rock n' roll along the lines of say Foo Fighters. I thought they were great and there seemed to be a pretty good crowd to catch the first band of the weekend.
Mammoth WVH.
With nighttime setting in, it was time for Metallica. This would be my 10th time seeing Metallica in concert. So ya, I've been a big fan of the band since my early teens, with the first three albums being my favourite and Master Of Puppets being one of my all time favourite albums. That album still sounds as good as the day it came out in 1986. I did lose interest in the band in the mid 90's up until they released what I think is one of their better albums, 2008's Death Magnetic. The band is currently touring for their latest release 72 Seasons, which is alright but not as good as I was hoping. Nonetheless, the band has a great catalog of music to pick from. And hey the few clunkers they do have, at least I won't hear them both nights as the two night stand is billed as the No Repeat weekend. And of course, out of two nights I'm still not going to hear all the songs I want.
So before Metallica came on it was time to get some beer. Well, holy fuck, trying to get a beer was going to be a challenge as the line ups at the concessions were fucking stupid and the staff that were selling beers on the concourse had disappeared. I was starting to panic as I'm not sitting through a Metallica concert with no beers. So after some fancy maneuvering, Nazz and I managed to get four beers before Metallica hit the stage. Now I was ready!
By now the stadium is full, my guess would be 55-60,000 heavy metal fans. Metallica came out super strong opening with "Creeping Death" which really surprised me in a great way. Nothing like hearing 60 thousand people singing Die, Die, Die on the opening number, after that it was into "Harvester of Sorrow" another surprise and then "Through The Never" a great three song opening. Then a couple of meh songs "King Nothing" and two from their new album "72 Seasons" and "If Darkness Had A Son", I get why they play these new songs as the band has to keep things interesting for themselves too, and I respect that. The new songs sound better live at least. Another surprise was hearing them do "Orion" from the Masters album, with James dedicating the song to the late great Cliff Burton. That was super cool! Then it was "Nothing Else Matters", time to go for a quick smoke. I can't stand that song. One song I really wanted to hear was "Battery" and fuck ya they played it, that got me excited, and for the last two songs of the night were "Seek And Destroy" followed by "Master Of Puppets". Great way to end the show. Metallica are super tight and certainly know how to work that huge circle stage they are performing on for this tour. And the set up was great with the stage in the middle of the field, so playing in the round, and with the speakers and video screens high above the stage there wasn't a bad seat in the place. This band knows what they are doing and do it really well. Ya, i didn't hear all the songs I wanted but hey we still had another night to see them and with a whole different set of songs. So Sunday was going to be another fun night of Metallica. Good times!!!
Metallica.
Because I have nothing else to write about at the moment, I thought I would post this. I bought this over a year ago and never wrote ab...
