Bassist Robert Truillo and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett of Metallica. Photo by Felipe Gamboa.
Axes to grind
By Carlin Nguyen
Thursday night mega rock band Metallica played to a sold-out crowd of approximately 17,000 people inside the Honda Center in Anaheim.
As usual people came from near and far. Folks from Australia were here. There was a cute couple who came from South America just to get a glimpse of bassist Robert Trujillo.
Drummer Lars Ulrich started out the show with an amazing prelude drum introduction before the band headed into “That Was Just Your Life."
Lead vocalist-guitarist James Hetfield was still rocking with his die-hard black-on-black shirt and pants. He always wants to make sure the crowd is comfortable and hopes they will return the favor.
There were a lot of nice songs to go around during the performance such as “The End of the Line,” “Broken, Beat and Scarred" in addition to classic Metallica numbers like “Sandman,” “From Whom The Bell Tolls,” and “Nothing Else Matters."
The stage setup presented a circular metal platform with eight coffins located up high above the stage. On each of the coffins lay bright white lights flashing out downward upon the hardcore fans (no matter where a person was sitting). But the stage presence was a different story. Hetfield, in the middle of the circular platform stage with his cool and witty attitude, is busy on the microphone. Meanwhile lead guitarist Kirk Hammett is 50 fifty feet away from the center of the stage while Trujillo was somewhere else.
The opening acts were Volbeat and Machine Head.
