Live Performances
Hammett noted the length of the songs being problematic for fans and the band. "Touring behind it, we realized that the general consensus was that songs were too fucking long," he said. "One day after we played 'Justice' and got off the stage one of us said, 'we're never fucking playing that song again.'" He is also quoted in an interview for SoWhat! magazine as saying "'Justice' was a bit much for me. I couldn't stand watching the front row start to yawn by the eight or ninth minute."
In spite of this, the song "One" quickly gained a permanent fixture in the band's live setlist since the release of the album. The only other song from …And Justice for All that has come close to this is "Harvester of Sorrow", a song that was played live heavily after the album's release but has only begun to be played again recently. "Blackened" has also recently seen some exposure in the World Magnetic Tour and for the Sonisphere festival.
When the song "One" is played live, the war sounds heard at the beginning of the song are often lengthened to sometimes around two minutes instead of the original seventeen seconds. When the war sounds have reached a conclusion, after having a pitch-black stage, fire will erupt from various points of the stage.
Sixteen years after "Dyers Eve" was recorded, on March 5, 2004, the band performed the song in its entirety for the first time ever on the Madly in Anger with the World Tour at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
On June 28, 2007, Metallica played the title track for the first time since October 1989, in Lisbon on the first show of their Sick of the Studio '07 tour and made it a set-fixture for the remainder of that routing. In 2008–2010, "...And Justice for All" was played again on rare occasions during their World Magnetic Tour.
Also on September 19, 2009, "The Shortest Straw" made its way back into the set lists during its World Magnetic Tour after a 12 year absence at the Montreal Bell Center, not being played live since February 9, 1997.
On December 8, 2011, Metallica performed "To Live Is to Die" in its entirety during the exclusive 30 Years of Metallica concerts at The Fillmore in San Francisco, California.
To date, "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" remains the only song from the album that has never been performed live in its entirety. Instead, the band has played segments of it during solos, impromptu jams, or in a "Justice" medley featured on the live album Live Shit: Binge and Purge.
"Eye of the Beholder" has not been played live in its entirety since 1989. One such performance appears on Metallica's live extended play, Six Feet Down Under.
Read more about this topic: ...And Justice For All (album)
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