I never expected it to be like this.

I never expected seeing Metallica to be like The Rolling Stones.

Thankfully, there are no female backing singers, anonymous session musicians, horn sections, or catwalks leading out into the crowd. But there is this :

An almost palpable sense of boredom. Maybe not from the stage, nor from the crowd, but from me. Because, to me, Metallica aren’t about the past. They’re about the future, and right now. They’re not about playing fourteen songs from the first five years of their career, and four from the past fourteen years. Leave that to The Stones.

They’re middle-aged men, playing the songs of teenagers in massive rooms. They’re disturbingly, to me, at least, completely ignoring whatever it is they’re about these days. I thought Metallica these days were about something apart from Nostalgia.

Oh no. From when they take the stage (8.27pm) to 9.04pm, Metallica resolutely play not one song that is less than eighteen years old. Sure, they execute “Battery”, “Four Horsemen”, “Ride The Lightning.”, “No Remorse”, “Sanitarium”, and “For Whom The Bell Tolls” with the bite and viciousness of teenagers, but these aren’t anything even vaguely approaching their Greatest Hits. They’re album tracks from the Eighties, three bassists and eight albums ago.

For fucks sake : “And Justice For All”, “Metallica”, “Load/Reload” and “St.Anger” - especially “St.Anger” - are when Metallica started getting interesting. When they started looking beyond to something new, some new form of metal. With Metallica, metal evolved. I defy any band, cosseted by years of stadium touring and millions in the bank, to make a record as thoroughly brilliant as “St.Anger”. Very few can do it.

And for a band of middle-aged men, fattened by money and art collections and beach houses to make something as resolutely vital, interesting, exciting as “St.Anger” is one helluva achievement. Bands of Metallica’s stature should be boring, safe, old, unadventurous in their music : isn’t that what age does? Thank god that, on record at least, Metallica still excite me. But to see a determinedly nostalgic live set just makes me feel that they’re like The Eagles or something, trapped forever by the shadows of a past that they’re not brave enough to escape.

And, as always, the sound at Earls Court is nothing but complete and utter shit. The drums sound almost as bad as the “St.Anger” album. Almost. Guitars disappear in some murky sludgy mid-range. And the bass is often some distant rumble that could be well, anything.

Which is a shame, because when they’re on form, nobody is as good as Metallica. All their peers, contemporaries, competitors, whatever, simply fall short. But the best band in the world can’t fight a dreadful sound mix, especially when they seem unable to escape their own past. It’s not until the seventh song that the band perform anything written after 1986 : and with only two songs taken from the bands last five most recent albums, I can’t help but feel disappointed. Not because Metallica perform with anything less than passion, but because they seem to be in denial of their most recent past. Drinking from the cup of denial.

So this is the new clean Metallica, the band that has banished its demons, but seems unable to escape it’s past life. No statements of intent in their set, no new directions, no indications of whatever it is that makes them work these days : just very very old songs. Where is the cavalcade of newer material? Where the songs from their latest (and best) album? Aside from all too brief, thrilling versions of “Frantic” and “Dirty Window”, not one of these songs was written after 1990. Where’s the definitive, furious “St.Anger”? Why are the band ignoring everything but some nostalgic retro-fest rooted in the Eighties?

Come on : this is Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd territory. Sure, we have vibrant, still-thrilling-after-all-these-years romps through “Creeping Death”, the drug-induced paranoid urgency of “Master of Puppets”, the fabulous exorcism of “Harvester of Sorrow” and the never bettered “One", but there’s too much teenage juvenilia, in the shape of the battered, rehearsal room speed-romps in the shape of “Fight Fire With Fire”, the worst-Metallica-song-ever “Seek And Destroy” (which rather sadly, equates a drinking session with a military mission), and the frankly overplayed, tired “No Remorse“. Sure. When Metallica were in the depths of their nadir, the late nineties endless-touring cycle that brought us the country-skiffle versions of “Motorbreath” and the meaningless leftovers of the bloated “Load”/“Reload” project, even then at least they were trying new things, not endlessly rehashing the past. Sure, I wanted them to get their bite back : that sense of urgency, that sense of anger, that sense of vitality. And when they did, with the fabulous “St Anger” they then jumped ship and the touring set became cabaret.

But this? Metallica split up years ago, broken by a huge touring cycle, years of drug abuse (with three heavy users amongst the four men on stage) and a creative slump : they reformed, changed styles, became Good again, and then ignored in favour of yet-another Greatest Hits style set that mines the past and ignores the present. Metallica are a jukebox cranking out the oldies.

Songs that were born out of poorly-soundproofed rooms by broke teenagers really shouldn’t be sung by middleaged millionaires. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the past, but this? This is turning Metallica into the greatest Metallica tribute band in the world. Sure, I rocked my socks off, and they shook me all night long. But this isn’t enough anymore. I need more. I need Metallica to show us what they are about now, not another history lesson about 1986.

Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? The future is here : Adapt or die.

INTRO -BATTERY – FOUR HORSEMEN – RIDE THE LIGHTNING – NO REMORSE – WELCOME HOME (SANITARIUM) – FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS – FRANTIC – SAD BUT TRUE – SOME KIND OF MONSTER (JAM) – DIRTY WINDOW – HARVESTER OF SORROW – MASTER OF PUPPETS – FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE – SEEK AND DESTROY – NOTHING ELSE MATTERS – CREEPING DEATH – ONE – ENTER SANDMAN – JAM – BLITZKREIG - MOTORBREATH

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