Brian's Take On Metallica @ Wachovia 1/17

It was in the 20s in the parking lot of the Wachovia Center in Philly on Saturday. Bundled up in three shirts, three jackets, two layers of pants, two pairs of socks, mittens, and a hat, I jumped out of the car and braced myself for what would become one of best times of my life. This was my first time seeing Metallica. Metallica! The greatest metal band in the world! Full of adrenaline, I stepped into the cold parking lot at 3:00pm, cracked a beer, and got down to business.

Armed with five hours of Metallica mixed across four CDs, Me, Shane, Garrett, and our buddy Bolen were ready to party. The night before we stocked up on food and beer, and after a quick stop at our local WaWa that afternoon for smokes and last minute supplies, we put in the first CD, turned it up, and hit the road. A little over an hour later we pulled into the Wachovia Center parking lot, just as the first Metallica mix ended. It wasn't crowded yet so we found a nice spot a few rows of cars away from the portable toilets and pulled in. When you're going to be drinking for 4 hours before a concert you want to be close to the bathroom.

As soon as I opened the door of Shane's Explorer I was struck by only one thought...it's fucking cold! I immediately put on all of the extra layers of clothes I had brought with me, and then went straight to the beer. For the next few hours we hung out downing Bud Lights, talking about all things Metallica, trying to predict what songs we would hear, and rocking out to more of the mix CDs we brought. Every hour or so we would jump back in the car and crank the heat to warm up a little, and after a few of these trips we started getting hungry and busted out the propane grill we had.

Drunk and hungry, we all couldn't wait to cook up a small feast, too bad mice got into the grill at Shane & Garrett's house and Garrett forgot to check it the night before so it was covered in shit. Luckily he brought a charcoal grill as a spare...with no charcoal or lighter fluid. Garrett is officially the worst tailgater I know.

Some nice guys from the parking lot let us borrow everything we needed to get the grill going and we eventually got to eat. Now sufficiently full and liquored up, I roamed the parking lot for a half an hour handing out our promo CDs to other tailgating fans. Before I knew it it was time to head into the show, so we pocketed two beers each for the wait in the line and headed towards the arena.

The Sword was playing when we got to our seats. They were ok. Machine Head was next, they rocked pretty hard and played "Hallowed Be Thy Name," an awesome Iron Maiden cover that they also recorded for the tribute album Kerrang! did for Iron Maiden - Maiden Heaven. We had a great view of their drummer, and he was absolutely nuts, but as soon as they left the stage I knew this was just a warm-up and the real deal was coming next.

I got chills when the lights went down and Ecstasy Of Gold started, then came the heart beat that kicks off "That Was Just Your Life" and Metallica took off flying. I don't really remember seeing much of that song or the next one, "The End Of The Line," because my head was busy swinging up and down as fast as possible. My neck is still a little sore three days later.

I was hoping the next song would give my brain a break from the constant rattling, but as soon as I heard the intro to "Creeping Death" I lost it. It's one of my favorite Metallica songs of all time, and they haven't been playing it that much this tour, so I obviously went ape shit. It was only the third song of the set and I already lost my voice chanting "die" during the breakdown.

Metallica kept rocking with some more old songs, a few new songs, and then after two off of the Black Album they launched into "All Nightmare Long," and I remember looking over at Garrett and we both had expressions of "Holy shit!" written all over our face. We had listened to a few early shows from the tour that Garrett downloaded and they never played it, so it caught us completely by surprise. We were talking before the show about how much we wanted to hear it and how upsetting it was that they weren't playing it this tour, none of us were keeping track of their shows so no one noticed that about half-way through the tour they added it to the set list. A very pleasant surprise.

We got the staples "Nothing Else Matters," "Master Of Puppets," and "Enter Sandman" during the second half of the show. The band walked off after "Sandman," and we all waited anxiously for their encore. The band took the stage again after a few minutes and launched into "Last Caress," which is one of our favorite covers from Garage Inc, and fun as hell to sing along to. They ended the show with two songs from Kill 'Em All, "Whiplash" and "Seek And Destroy." However before the band closed the night with "Seek" James brought his daughter Marcella out onto the stage because it was her birthday. He talked about her having a Dad who is on the road a lot and not always around for her birthday, so it's nice to have her come see Dad at work, and then had us all sing her "Happy Birthday." It was a genuinely heartfelt moment, and something I'm glad I was there for.

Towards the end of "Seek And Destroy" Garrett and I headed up to the front row so we could try to grab the picks and other goodies the band throws from the stage at the end of the show. We had a present for them too. We snuck one copy of our promo into the show and planned to throw it up on stage at the end. We waited for the right time, and while Rob was looking right at us I wound up and tossed our demo like a frisbee right at him. Rob put out his hand, I'm not sure if he tried to catch it or was just protecting himself because he thought it was going to hit him, but either way it was a foot away from his grasp before it missed and fell to the stage. As the band walked around giving out their souvenirs they were walking right over it. I was screaming as loud as I could but no one heard me and all four of the horsemen walked off stage while our CD still laid there.

Except for our failure to get Metallica to pick up our demo, this was the perfect show. Garrett had a short list of songs he wanted to hear at least once during the three shows he is seeing, and they played them ALL AT THIS SHOW! It was awesome, we got to rock out, and Metallica is the best metal band ever. Period.

If you want to see the full set list from our show it's here, and if you want you can download the full show for $10 too.