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Metallica seems to be more "aggressive" Live again.

4K views 37 replies 17 participants last post by  mpexus 
#1 ·
An Official pro footage surfaced today on my FB feed with a song they played 4 days ago in Portugal, clicking on it by curiosity and waiting it to be lackluster I was in fact surprised, very surprised.

Its Frantic but without the Trash Can Snare so it sound much better already, also Lars seem to have managed one song without any major mistakes:



Then again driven by curiosity I went to check their other performance videos and got into Fight Fire With Fire and damn... this is the Metallica I know. Ok they are older, miss some beats here and there but James is almost growling. Loved the attitude and the Energy:



They seem to be sounding better Live again, James doesn't seem to be singing from his Nose like someone with a Cold.
 
#4 ·
This is the first recent Metallica I've watched lately. Lars doesn't have much groove in his playing here, which was always his main advantage over the techier thrash drummers back in the day. Seems like he's struggling to keep up.

Everyone else sounded pretty good, though, even Kirk.
 
#8 ·
Or maybe they are in dire need of cash. No one "works" as hard if not looking for some extra. Guess that the Disaster "movie" investment was deeper than we all think. Maiden are Touring 3 months a year basically and they dont sell as many tickets.
 
#10 ·
Portugal show was super super expensive for the country (80 to 120 euros a ticket) and they seem to have sold out the 40K seats in a very short time. People pay for it and it seems they have more and more audience every year.

About the "Movie"... well next time make a real Movie and not a freaking Concert.
 
#12 ·
I'm not sure if $25mil is enough of a loss to make them tour that much. It's not like they're sparing expenses in production. With the amount of money they bring in for each concert, that money could have been recouped in the same year it was lost. While financial shit is better left speculated by the other Drew here, I'd have to think that they wouldn't have made the investment if it was going to crush them financially. 3 out of 4 of those guys certainly don't half-ass it live and I'll even give Lars a break for the half-assing he does because the guy has never claimed he was great at what he does. Playing in a huge metal band was his only real goal, not being a great drummer. If they were touring just for the money, I think you'd hear James phoning it in quite a bit. Shit, look at Tool. Maynard has been phoning it in for years and they've been living off nostalgia at this point.
 
#13 ·
I read some time ago that the Metallica Machine is a huge one and it needs tons of cash to keep afloat. Without Albums sales money they have to resort to Touring and they did it and they also increased their prices by a substantial lot.

I'm also lead to believe that there's a certain probability of that they would be going to end this Massive Tours cycles in a not distant future. Lets face it how old are they? This is not Rolling Stones or U2 shows, they have been super active on a very demanding Music style for the past what? 40 years? For how long can anyone still enjoy doing this on this magnitude? So why not try to cash grab as much as you can right now?

Again, Maiden management saw this 15+ years ago and they did an amazing job at getting a plan that works for them and doesn't strain them all year long after spending a full decade basically on the road.
 
#14 ·
I read some time ago that the Metallica Machine is a huge one and it needs tons of cash to keep afloat. Without Albums sales money they have to resort to Touring and they did it and they also increased their prices by a substantial lot.
99% of bands don't live off of album sales. You have to be at a platinum level just to start making money, and even then, it's probably something like 25c a record (which is a massive amount belying how big of a band they are). Touring is where bands have ALWAYS made their money.

Ty Tabor talked about it in the King's X book that came out recently. They've never made a cent off of album sales. It's pretty sad.
 
#27 ·
combed through this thread a bit got the gist, my perspective: ultimately you couldn't pay me to see metallica these days. There are just so many other power thrash bands from that era that just kept bringing it over the years without questionable performances and weird finding yourself moments that we had to watch metallica go through. I mean I saw Testament and Anthrax back in 2012 and they both sounded so massive and dead on and never really strayed too much from what they were.

Also, 80 to 120 euros to see metallica? yikes! me thinks not.....
 
#28 ·
I saw that same tour and completely agree. The show I attended even had Death Angel opening. All three came out and just floored the place. I, too, don't feel the need to pay a bunch of money to see Metallica sort of approximate what they used to do.

And, frankly, Metallica is:

--A very raw, fun first album
--Two legendary albums
--A good album
--A decent hard rock album
--A whole bunch of crap after that with a few good tracks here and there

The AJFA tour is one of my fonder concert memories. However, my date and I left the Black Album tour show early--they were playing for something like three hours, and it just got boring. No thrash set should ever be over 1.5 hours, and that's especially true for a thrash band playing at half-speed most of the time (which is essentially what the Black Album is).
 
#29 ·
My wife and I walked into a tattoo parlor last night and they were blaring Puppets through a really nice old school stereo system... made me remember how much I absolutely loved Metallica back then, and how fall they've fallen since then. A bunch of 20/30 something metal head tattoo artists don't even want to listen to the stuff that isn't from the 80s. At this point, all I care to listen to is Ride & Puppets as I wonder what could have been if Cliff Burton had lived...

 
#31 ·
Could be. My understanding back then, from the people I knew who knew them, they all followed Cliff's lead. He was the 'big brother' they all looked up to and the ingredient that made them jump from Kill 'Em All level to what they delivered with Ride & Puppets - which also explains the fall off after Justice, since a lot of that was Cliff's work. But, yeah, who knows what would have been... (insert The Thing That Should Not Be joke here)
 
#32 ·
I think some of the Bands mentioned that stayed "true" to their origins only did it because they didn't found any success trying to do something else.

All bands change, some for the better, others not really and very few change to become Huge. That's what happened to Metallica.

I'm 100% certain every other mentioned band member would love to be on their Position. Starting a Band is all fun and games, maintaining a career with it pretty sure its not and they managed to do it and raise their prices on every tour and sell out Arenas everywhere. Testament 300-500 maybe 1000 seats? Exodus? Death Angel? All of this later bands perform to huge crowds when they are inserted on festivals, the rest of the Tour is medium small to small places.
 
#33 ·
I consider myself a pretty lucky Metallica fan, in the sense that the Black album and Load were my introductions to the band and while I'm sure I heard "One" and "Master Of Puppets" before then, I didn't have any identity attached to the band, I just knew I dug the tunes. Even when I started going back and getting into their earlier stuff, it was all just a bunch of songs that I really dug.

I'll go see them anytime I get the chance. I've only seen them once, on the Death Magnetic tour in Boston, but the energy in the room was really, really cool and was definitely part of my experience. Their production is always killer and being a fan of pretty much everything but St. Anger ("All Within My Hands" is a cool tune) I know I'll get a whole night of what I consider killer tunes.
 
#34 ·
My first concert of theirs was on the Load tour in '97...where the entire stage collapsed at the end (same tour from the Cunning Stunts video). I was too young to see them in their heyday, but they could still deliver back then. I've seen them two or three times since and it was clear that their live performances were slipping each time. Glad to see they're still at it. It sounds like they are tuning down, which makes it easier on James' voice. He was having a real hard time getting the screams and higher notes right from their early stuff. It's good that they're playing to their strengths, but it's still not "fuck yeah!" enough to be the Metallica that I remember.
 
#35 ·
My first concert of theirs was on the Load tour in '97...where the entire stage collapsed at the end (same tour from the Cunning Stunts video). I was too young to see them in their heyday, but they could still deliver back then. I've seen them two or three times since and it was clear that their live performances were slipping each time.
Which means you're not old enough to realize they had already slipped mightily by the time you first saw them. Exhibit A:

 
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