Metallica circles its legacy in first of two nights in Edmonton

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The world’s mightiest thrash band with the odd country ballad in the middle circled round and round its legacy for Metallica’s first stadium show in Edmonton since 2017.

The 43-year-old Bay Area band is at this point the Star Wars of heavy metal — its fractured fandom strewn across grumpy orthodox adherents stuck to the unprecedented wall of fire of the band’s first three or four records to the good-time, AM radio rock vibe of aging dads and their aging kids, a fair chunk of them seeing the band formerly nicknamed Alcoholica for the first time Friday night.

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Either way, the M72 Tour crowd shy of a potential 60,000 was long past the denim tuxedo banger days of the band’s Northlands Coliseum ticket holders back in the ’80s — though it must be said you could walk through the Elks’ cement clamshell and be fairly certain Edmonton owns more Metallica T-shirts than local CFL merch.

Opening with Ride the Lighting’s pit-activating, wailing freakout of Creeping Death, singer James Hetfield quickly demonstrated the shifting focus of the appropriately warped-record setup of the central stage, moving between mics as god-level guitarist Kirk Hammett and now-forever bassist Robert Trujillo posed for the far-off photographers.

“Welcome to night one of the Metallica and Metallica family takeover of Edmonton,” 61-year-old biker-looking Hetfield grinned with a jubilant country singer charm he exuded throughout the show. “I’m so glad to be here!”

As backwards-ballcap Lars Ulrich made his trademark face/tongue gestures during the more thumpy Harvester of Sorrow, the mobility of the other players became extra clear as not only did they whirl and wander around the vast circular stage to give everyone in the distant bleachers a view, Hetfield in particular paid attention to the denizens of donut-hole Snake Pit inside the ring.

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Through the Never was the first of four “Black Album” songs delivered, followed by Load’s King Nothing and then into the new yet very familiar sounding 72 Seasons and If Darkness Had a Son, Hammett doing some impressive shredding here in his amazing tiger shirt.

Still echoing the mutual-support lessons learned on camera, Hetfield praised Ulrich between the two songs.

“That’s what he does real good right there,” the black-clad singer said of his decades-long amigo. “Does it make you feel like you wanna do something?”

Hetfield’s demeanour was remarkably joyous, as if he’d just stepped off the stage of this week’s Democratic National Convention into central Alberta.

He had us chanting “temptation!” during Darkness, an interesting echo of Tea Party doing just that in this same venue a generation back Edgefest.

“We pretend we’re professional,” Hetfield laughed, “but we’re just having fun,” before Trujillo announced he and Hammett love jamming and that they’d been working on something special for a few days. Come on, for us?

“We wrote this song just for Edmonton,” the Santa Monica-born bass player announced to an expected roar when he said it was called Edmonton We Got You, the two snaking around each other in a Sabbath funky-bluesy-metal sonic doodle.

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Nice stuff.

Hammett kept riffing as the hourglass up on the screens hinted might be time for Enter Sandman yet the notes summoned Fade to Black. Instead, it was Death Magnetic’s catalogue-pastichy The Day That Never Comes — Kirk and Lars going ape at the end.

The joke of the night was when Hetfield asked if we owned a copy of last year’s 72 Seasons — the tour’s yellowjacket theme numerically aimed at 18-year-olds — then deadpanning, “Can I borrow it? I don’t have one.”

Shadows Follow then led to one of the best moments so far, as the four players clustered and did Master of Puppets’ cosmic instrumental Orion in what really was a metal jazz show for tens of thousands.

While the actual constellation itself was lost in the clouds, that one really was aimed at the heavens as Hetfield noted, “That goes out to our fallen brother Clifford Lee Burton. Miss you, brother.”

Bass solo, take eternity. But this second-to-third act cinematic break is probably a decent time to mention the openers.

The killer heavy rock band Mammoth WVH (as in Wolfgang Van Halen) welcomed in the sunbaked early attendees, the singer laughing, “Don’t worry, we won’t take too long.”

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You’re to Blame was juicy-heavy, Like a Pastime infectious, swirling rock. Check them out, they’re great!

Next, the well-established skate-metal act Pantera. Big cheers from the gigantic townie contingent as they walked out, unleashing A New Level and Mouth for War — the band overall alluringly joyful inside its fury.

Dimebag Darrell got a video tribute before the punchy 5 Minutes Alone, and both This Love and especially Walk were total sing-alongs for the faithful as barefoot singer Phil Anselmo wanted to know who was there for his band — and, yes, there were many.

Nice branded stage carpets, PS!

OK, back to the main event — we were just at Orion, and now spinning to Earth for the second two Metallica album numbers. Told you this show was all about circles!

All the digital lighters popped up to create that missing constellation for what I’ve always said is a fine country ballad — outro wah-wah soloing aside — Nothing Else Matters.

Then, nice to hear, the angsty doom march Sad But True, with Pink Floyd-y jackboots up on the eight circular video towers.

Cool moment here as Trujillo “floated” over the Snake Pit on a (you got it) circular platform wheeled around — special gear head mention, PS, to Hammett’s ESP custom Sparkle Ouija and Boris Karloff shredders. He’s so cute!

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The hard-thrashing Battery shookup the bowl, then Fuel from Reload of all songs had the best pyro fireballs and as the cylinder screen towers hit their true potential and became giant positions — the closest this band got to sexual content. The headbanger next to me threw his hat off and ran up and down the stairs at this point, like this one was his secret spinach can. Loved it.

Besides various neon-capped cops dragging rowdies out all night, as Seek & Destroy deployed a stretcher was pulled from the Snake Pit— hope you’re OK!

Then, no surprise, finale Master of Puppets took us to the end with an extended goodbye and buckets of picks thrown to the happy crowd who had just witnessed a great, deep-diving show.

And this, mind you, is merely the halfway point, metal mayhem to be continued Sunday.

fgriwkowsky@postmedia.com

@fisheyefoto

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