Death DVD
METALLICA Concert DVD from Death Magnetic Tour
The biggest metal band of all time is to add another DVD to their already long list of live releases, according to a post on their official site. Recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and selling around 1.77 million copies of last year’s Death Magnetic in the States, METALLICA “thought it would be cool to document a few shows that are unique and sure to be extra memorable.”
They’ll be filming five or so sold out shows for the DVD, a few in Mexico City in June, then a couple after that in France.
After a few patchy releases in the ’90s and the misunderstood St. Anger of 2003, many feared METALLICA had lost the intensity and creative fire that gained them their enormous following in the first place. But Death Magnetic, serving as a sort of return to form, has been like a rejuvenation for them. There’s an excitement to the album, a certain controlled but still tearing energy that they haven’t shown they possess since probably The Black Album in ‘91.
And in that spirit of rekindling old flames, the band has been playing in concert stuff from their earliest Ride the Lightning and even Kill ‘Em All days, some tracks they haven’t performed on stage since they toured with them all those years ago. Death Magnetic even has its own “Unforgiven” track, a throwback that retains a sense of continuity but then lashes out at it toward the song’s end, modernizing it, honoring the past while at the same time breaking the cycles it can’t help but put in place.
Hetfield and the guys are obviously a very different band now than they were 20 years ago, but they’ve managed to capture a feel in Death Magnetic that’s both new and old, vintage and contemporary. And it’s a good place for them to be. Sure, all these DVD releases might feel like a little much, and the band isn’t treading entirely new ground with Death - but they did that already with St. Anger, and their fans backlashed. So for now, they’re rocking a sort a middle -ground, doing well what they’ve always done best.
Because at the end of the day, Kirk can still shred a solid solo, Lars can still pound and Hetfield still has one of the greatest voices in rock, the kind you can’t help but mimic, dragging out that last “ahhh” tacked onto to every last word, drumming on your desk or steeling wheel and singing along. And if the material is fresh–which it definitely is–that’s really all you need.
A teaser video of METALLICA’s “Broken, Beat and Scarred” shot by friend of the band and concert director extraordinaire Wayne Isham (who’s worked with pretty much everyone from Michael Jackson to Pink Floyd) can be viewed below. No definite word yet if he’ll be filming the upcoming shows, but it’s probably a good bet. He’s done 5 of METALLICA’s DVDs already, including S&M and Live Shit – Binge & Purge.
Tour dates are already scheduled–Europe for the rest of the summer and the U.S. in the fall. Here are the U.S. dates.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 11:17 pm and is filed under music, prog-unrelated. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
