We have been waiting for this day for full three decades, and it finally arrived. And then rain falls. And it’s faling. And falling. And falling. And it doesn’t want to stop. And it’s faling. And the mud. And cold. Did i mention that we are in the middle of May?
I will try to avoid frustration caused by bed weather and start with important things.
Even few minutes before 7pm High on Fire enter the stage and in front of not so big audience they perform their half-hour set. After them Volbeat takes place, who i privately don’t listen to, nor i tried to hear them before concert, but they have surprised me with their performance and simply amazed because they are perfectly packed mixture of metal and many other music genres and they definitelly managed to prepare the audience for what follows.
We have all with excitement, forzen and wet, waited for the stars of the evening to show up on stage. Few minutes after 9pm lights are down, video walls on and we are watching projection of scenes from „The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly“ movie with sounds of Metallica famous „Ectasy Of Gold“ intro song and most famous faces of world’s metal scene are coming out on stage, starting their two and half hour long set with „Creeping Death“. I must specially mention those two and half hours they played, the lenght of gig you will rarely get from band this big nowdays. They managed to bring the atmosphere u with „From Whom The Bell Tolls“, because people were still ambitious and tought rain willnot stop them in their wish to have fun, but after „Fuel“ they gave up. „Ride The Lightning“, beautiful „Fade To Black“ and short set from their new album„Death Magnetic“ follows – „That Was Just Your Life“, „The End Of The Line“  and „The Day That Never Comes“. After „Sad By True“ they play appropriate „Broken, Beat and Scarred“ with more propriate line „What don’t kill you, make you more strong“. Highlight of the evening was definitelly pyro intro in song „One“ which is the begining of „greatest hits“ part of concert. After it followed in row „Master Of Puppets“, „Battery“, „Nothing Else Matters“ and „Enter Sandman“ with which they finished regular part of set, and usually that is the part when crowd goes mad and they all sing along Metallica’s evergreens. Of course, there are always some kind of exceptions, so unfortunaly, Croatian gig was one of them. Atmospehere got totally lost in rain, crowd was standing still, traped under jackets and raincoats, just on the moments you could notice the ambition from people in fan pit, but that is all. Those moments weren’t enough to transmit power and energy of those evergreens throught whole hippodrome so it all fell completely in one big puddle of mud with which we are faced from the beginning. Lines of most famous „Nothing Else Matters“ were barely heard. That is sad. That is sad, desperate and heartbreaking.
Band comes to encore with Diamond Head cover „Am I Evil?“, we can hear sounds of old „Hit The Lights“ and, of course, „Seek And Destroy“ for the end.
To make it clear, band is technically perfect, production is technically perfect, but the rain that was falling whole time, without any pause, cut the link between band and love for the music of the audience, the very same love Hetfield was talking about while making contact to the audience several times, and so the rain became barrier in transmission energy from the band which is life important to lovers of their art.  And what is there left to say for the end? I dreamt ambiciously that one day i will finish my Metallica live report with sentence „Metallica – and nothing else matters“, but the only thing what i have to say at the moment is „What don’t kill you,  make you more strong“. Till next time!

Report: Maja Trstenjak (maja@venia-mag.net)
Photo: Matilda Rudec