So Metallica announced their tour dates and it includes an October 25th date in Kansas City. For some reason I’m thinking I’d like to go which is strange since I had written them off long ago.
The last time I saw them live was in 1992, part of the Metallica/Guns & Roses tour. Since then they’ve released Load (which I liked) but after that a series of missteps, including “Reload”, the whole Napster thing, “St Anger”, and “Some Kind of Monster”. Every time I see or hear Lars I cringe because at this point he seems like nothing more than a whiner.
Part of the problem is that I want to like them. When I heard “Master of Puppets” in 1986 I was completely blown away - I had never heard anything like it before. Seeing them live clinched it. So it really pains me to watch them release a bunch of crap.
I know part of the reason I’m thinking about going is the new Sprint Center which I’ve never been to. Van Halen played there but that didn’t really interest me, nor did the string of adult contemporary acts to follow. I know the clincher will be the ticket prices, and I have a bad feeling about those.
Here’s a live version of one of their new songs. It certainly sounds better than the stuff on “St Anger”, but nothing about it really grabs me. If there was a piece of software that could write songs and you told it to write a Metallica song, this is what I imagine it would come up with. It sounds right, but it lacks feeling.
This past Friday was the anniversary show for the Johnny Dare show at the City Market, Judas Priest with Jackyl, Drowning Pool, and Federation of Horsepower opening. I normally try to separate the venue/environment from the show itself but this time it’s impossible. It was hot. Miserably hot, and I think it brought down what should have been a great show.
I missed Federation of Horsepower because I decided to eat a real meal instead of whatever the options were at the City Market. I wish I had seen them because it features someone from the morning show who does a lot of the music and song parodies and I was curious how that translated into a band.
Drowning Pool was next and I wonder what they thought about going on before Jackyl. I only have their first album so I’m not that familiar with their newer stuff. I recognized a few songs from that album and they sounded good with the new singer. They weren’t terrible but their performance didn’t make me want to rush out and check out their new album or anything. The heat was at its worst during their set so I admit to not paying too much attention to them since the shady spot I found didn’t have a view of the stage.
Jackyl was next. I hadn’t seen them before, probably because I was broke around the time that they were big. Again, I only have their first album and I might have a live album stashed somewhere. It was about what you would expect from them, blues based rock and of course they had to end with “The Lumberjack Song”. The main negatives were that they didn’t play my favorite song of theirs “Down on Me” and their singer’s raps between songs went a little too long. I will give them credit for having a song called “My Moonshine is Better than Your Cocaine”.
The show started at six and Judas Priest came on a little after 9:45 which seemed a little late considering that there are residential areas around the City Market. They opened with “Dawn of Creation/Prophecy” which had me a little worried that they were going to do Nostradamus from start to finish, but the next song was “Metal Gods” so I was relieved.
For a band that’s been around as long as they have they still sound good, and Halford’s voice sounded good especially since I’ve heard from a couple of people that it’s shot. Anyway, courtesy of MetalSetLists here’s the complete set list:
Dawn of Creation/Prophecy
Metal Gods
Eat Me Alive
Between The Hammer And The Anvil
Devil’s Child
Breaking The Law
Hell Patrol
Dissident Aggressor
Angel
The Hellion/Electric Eye
Rock Hard, Ride Free
Painkiller
—
Hell Bent For Leather
The Green Mahalishi
You’ve Got Another Thing Coming
It’s always great to hear a band perform one of your favorite songs especially if it’s not one of their big ones, so I was really happy they performed “The Green Mahalishi.” I would have liked “Diamonds and Rust” also but what can you do.
The odd thing is that Priest’s set only lasted an hour and fifteen minutes. That’s only fifteen minutes less than what I was expected but still there’s something not right with a headlining band playing less than 90 minutes.
I had a good time but I’m sure if someone asks me about this show in ten years (and no one will) I’ll probably go on and on about the heat for ten minutes without any mention of the rest of the show. Every couple of years I go to something like this to remind me why I don’t like outside shows.