When I catch up with Hammett, it is in an especially noxious space in the corridor of the decaying arena, with the smell of truck fuel, forklifts beeping, and the other sensations of gear and worker bees in motion. My task at the Rubber Bowl is to interview all the lead guitarists, from Kingdom Come’s Danny Stag to Edward Van Halen. “When I first heard Metallica, I didn’t comprehend that they were a metal band.” If there was another band as literally impactful at the time, I was unaware of it. It was evolutionary metal that would lead the genre in multiple directions: powerfully introspective songwriting, a new form of rhythmic expression, explosive nihilism, and edgier, more furious guitar virtuosity. This was heavy rock wrought extra heavy, then made even heavier by the band’s intersection of energy, virtuosity, power, imagination, and heart. And Kirk Hammett was entirely unfettered, tossing off ferocious melodies that were so fast and compact they were sometimes hard to absorb intellectually, but nonetheless landed breath-stealing emotional punches. James Hetfield drove the songs with his bristling, emotionally fraught howl, and used his profoundly insistent guitar style to command demon groove to do his bidding, with drummer Lars Ulrich and bassist Cliff Burton also keeping their hands on its chains. They pummeled … and artfully soared-a rare balance. What arrested me was more than Metallica’s garb, long hair, and the crowd’s headbanging. At that point, I knew nothing of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, since its sound never reached the rust belt of central Connecticut, where I grew up. But when I caught them on tour, I got it. To my ears, and the reference points of my outlier listening habits, they were mixing hardcore with the avant-garde-creating a sound more akin to Sonic Youth or sped-up Swans than Sabbath, Zeppelin, or Priest, all bands I also loved. I picked up Kill ’Em All on a whim in 1983, intrigued by the hammer with bloodstains on its cover. In fact, when I first heard Metallica, I didn’t comprehend that they were a metal band. It’s fun to watch, and transporting to hear. And the crowds show their love by exploding at the end of every song, and bouncing fans onto the stage like human volleyballs, tossed back by security in return. At this point in their career, they specialize in lurching, locomotive rhythms, head-snapping time changes, and a relentless wall of sound that, while brutal in its own delicious way, takes away the pain of the heat. There is nothing cartoonish about Metallica’s performances on both days in this unforgiving fortress of rock. A few months before I came on, the publication did its first metal cover, depicting Rob Halford and other hard-rocking heroes as Marvel comics characters. I’m there because I’ve been sent on assignment by Musician magazine, where I’m associate editor at the time, and perhaps the only writer there besides the Rev. At one point in his band’s set, Rudolf Schenker, songwriter and rhythm guitarist for Scorpions, tries one of his colorful stage moves-twirling a Flying V over his head while holding it by the headstock-and the guitar leaps from his sweat-covered paw, flies across the proscenium, and cracks in half. Everyone is hot, thirsty, and covered with sweat and dust. It’s 97 degrees in the Rubber Bowl and there is little refuge within its grim walls, and inadequate food and beverage service. In the songs they play that day, which include “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Welcome Home (Sanitarium),” “Harvester of Sorrow,” “Fade to Black,” “Seek & Destroy,” “Master of Puppets,” and “Am I Evil,” there is a world of pain and celebration, of self-doubt and exorcism-all hinged on James Hetfield’s downstroked guitar tones, a tsunami of high-gain amplification, and a drummer who is seemingly trying to beat the Devil back into his pit. But not as hard as Metallica, whose set detonates with an almost incomprehensible mix of rage and soul. Most play by the old-school rules of metal, and they hit their marks-hard. One of these things is not like the others. It’s June 1988, and the first day of a two-show stand for the original Monsters of Rock tour, with Van Halen, Dokken, Kingdom Come, the Scorpions, and, in the middle of the bill, Metallica. At least that’s how it seems in Akron, Ohio’s Rubber Bowl stadium, a nearly half-century-old, crumbling concrete relic built to amass the sun’s rays until hot enough to remove the flesh from the bones of the members of the University of Akron’s football team.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |