The Show
The band dispensed with supporting acts on the tour, billing it on tickets as "An Evening with Metallica / No Opening Act". Instead, a video presentation was shown before the concerts actually started. Included might be clips of local sights near the venue, Metallica shopping in local stores, roadies prepping the arena, Lars Ulrich walking around backstage giving introductions and reciting band history, or other band members engaging in various hijinks. The video would conclude with a montage of "Enter Sandman" with film clips of Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Setlists consisted of a mixture of Metallica (The Black Album) material with fan-favorite songs from their first four albums. Shows were typically three hours long.
The stage itself was a diamond form, with a number of singing and playing positions as well as drum kit positions that would allow band members to rotate around. Some selected fans were located in a pit inside the stage area.
Once in the show's mid-section, individual unaccompanied solo slots were offered up, typically a bass solo, then later a drum solo, and in another while a guitar one. The drum slot was often the most popular, with a second drum kit popping up and Hetfield taking a seat, dueling with Ulrich. Drum parts from other bands such as Slayer might be quoted, or Kirk Hammett might appear to play a bit of "Smoke on the Water" along the drums.
Read more about this topic: Wherever We May Roam Tour
Famous quotes containing the word show:
“Nothing to be done really about animals. Anything you do looks foolish. The answer isn’t in us. It’s almost as if we’re put here on earth to show how silly they aren’t.”
—Russell Hoban (b. 1925)
“Fashion is primitive in its insistence on exhibitionism, which withers in isolation. The catwalk fashion show with its incandescent hype is its apotheosis. A ritualized gathering of connoiseurs and the spoilt at a spotlit parade of snazzy pulchritude, it is an industrialized version of the pagan festivals of renewal. At the end of each seasonal display, a priesthood is enjoined to carry news of the omens to the masses.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)