Friday, August 28^th, 1998.

Irvine Meadows Amphitheater, Irvine CA.

Quote from the band:

Todays show: Back on tour, yes!! Show just finished. The band had a lot of guests tonight, including some of the Marylin Manson girls...guys

The show was about 2:30, here is the setlist!

Breadfan

Master of Puppets (full)

Of Wolf and Man

The Thing that Should not Be

Fuel

The Memory Remains

Bleeding Me

Nothing Else Matters

Until It Sleeps

King Nothing

Wherever I may Roam

ONE

Fight Fire with Fire

Low Man’s Lyric

Four Horsemen

Last Caress

Sad But True

Enter Sandman

Creeping Death

This show was one HELL of a show! I loved it! The only negative things I could say is it could have been louder, and also, they could have played a few more songs, but all in all it was really great!

First of all let me say something about the opening bands. After all they deserve credit for coming out there and playing. First was Days of the New. I didn’t recognize any of their songs but I liked the acoustic guitar approach. They were cool, and they sounded a bit like Alice in Chains. There were hardly any people for that part of the show. After they left, Jerry Cantrell came on. He was really cool, I liked his set! He did some good soloing and guitar work. He did a few songs from Boggy Depot, but did quite a few from Alice in Chains. He played Got me Wrong, Dem Bones (which was awesome!) and Heaven Beside You. I think he also played one more from AIC. You could really tell that he needed to have Layne Staley back because it is so much better with his voice. Their keyboardist went crazy, he was spinning his keyboard around a lot and jumping around the stage. He wore some kind of robe, it was pretty weird.

The last song they played was a cover of Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. It was pretty dark so everyone got out their lighters and put them up in the air.

Now comes the anticipation before the entrance of Metallica! They played the song Ecstasy of Gold as the intro, it’s from the classic movie "The good, the bad and the ugly", with Clint Eastwood. The music piece is called "Ecstasy of Gold" and it´s written by the Italian composer Ennio Morricone.

The stage went dark as the band came up. The started off with a blast and went right into Breadfan! It was weird because I didn’t expect them to start off on a cover song, but it was cool. After welcoming us, James said that he was happy to be there and told us that we made the band feel good since we were supporting them! He said that they would be playing some songs that they haven’t played for a while! (awesome!) He said, " I’m here to F*&^ up the lyrics and you’re here to fix ‘em right? Cause you know them all right?" He was in a good mood. After the first few songs, Jason did a little bass solo with some cool effects. I liked it a lot. He also talked a bit about how happy he was that so many people were out there.

Now I am going to talk about some of my favorite points and highlights. The whole show was great overall, and they didn’t make too many mistakes that I noticed. They had a lot of energy to go on for that amount of time, it was pretty good. And, yes to those doubters out there, they still played their old songs, just as good as before!!!!

Of course there is the perennial comments of James trying to get the crowd to go crazy (and it worked!) They tried to get us all to clap in unison but that didn’t work out too well. I loved the fireworks for enter sandman, and the flames on the stage for Fuel. The rocket for One was pretty cool too!

The acoustic part was cool because it seemed like they were leaving. Before Nothing else matters they also did a short acoustic version of Where the Wild Things Are. I loved the guitar work on the acoustic version of Last Caress, very good job by Kirk. James said that that he was surprised that we put up with that acoustic sh!t and kinda apologized for it. He expected half of the people to be gone after that!

The solos were amazing.. especially One and Nothing Else matters and Wherever I may Roam! All of them were good of course. One of the best moments was when Kirk played the death music, it was great because it was so unexpected!

My favorite song was probably One, but everyone was shouting for Fade to Black. Unfortunately they didn’t play that one. The best surprise was Nothing Else matters, since I never expected to hear that one!

People were throwing clothes, hats and glow in the dark things all around, and some landed on stage. Of course Lars was there to throw it back at them! The people in the front got drinks thrown at them toward the end of the show by Jason and Lars. They also threw out guitar picks and Lars gave away a couple of drumsticks too. It was funny, because he was teasing the audience and talking to them before he gave anything away.

I also loved the guitars they used. Kirk had a strat and a gibson, most of his standard guitars. James played his signature Ibanez. Pretty great stuff!

Well, seeing Metallica live has given me faith in hard rock music again. It was one of the most energetic shows I have ever seen! If you ever get a chance, go see them sometime in concert, you won’t regret it, but your ears might.

The lighting was awesome, it made the show really great, and it was great to begin with! They had strobe lights, red strobes, and cool effects with the green and purple lighting. Also the spotlights were put to good use with the fog. It just made the amosphere perfect. This is the best lighting for a show I’ve ever seen.

The fans were insane, but that’s old news. People were shouting to request all sorts of songs.. The lawn section was prety crazy because lots of people were running around like animals. A couple people started bonfires and were running around them. Later the lit their shirts on fire and were waving them around. Some people can get pretty crazy sometimes so I would suggest leaving as soon as the show is over and running to your car. Then leave before anything crazy happens.

9 of 10 (only thing I can really complain about is length. They could have stuck a couple more songs in on the second encore!)

Well, I can’t wait to see them again, and I am looking forward to their next album, Garage Days Re-Revisited and concert video to be released on November 17, 1998!

Pictures