Swindon Music

Oh ... My ... God ... Just how big is the O2?!?!? You walk in through the door and are immediately confronted by a huge entrance hall. Firstly, the walk down Entertainment Avenue which boasts literally miles of restaurants and bars, two nightclubs and an 11 screen cinema, and, eventually, after walking for what seems like hours, we make it to the arena itself. This is approximately the size of one of those NHL ice rinks you see on TV and is where Metallica choose to celebrate the release of new album, Death Magnetic, with 20,000 of their closest friends. Now we're seated up in the nosebleed seats, but thankfully the band are playing "in the round", with the stage in the centre of the floor, so everyone gets a good view. Metallica take the stage to AC/DC's "It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock N Roll)” and immediately launch into album opener "That Was Just Your Life", a future thrash metal classic. Next up is the 1-2 of "The End Of The Line" and "The Thing That Should Not Be", and you realise that the band are on fire. The energy coming off the stage is electrifying, as is the enthusiasm of the band, who are clearly having a ball tonight. All the classics are played, interspersed with tracks from the new album, but it’s current single “The Day That Never Comes” which shines brightest. Reminiscent of the band’s 1989 breakthrough “One”, it is a 7 minute epic of melodic clean guitar verses with heavier choruses leading into a final thrash and punk-metal wigout. The crowd respond to it like an old friend, and you know that it will remain in their set for a long time to come. They even throw a nod to the much maligned St Anger album with “Frantic”, which James Hetfield introduces with “Say what you will about the album, but this song kicks ass!!!”. He’s not wrong. Our evening ends with “Master Of Puppets” ringing around the O2, as we, unfortunately, had to leave before the encore to catch the last train home. Ironically, the train was delayed …

man that sounds amazing. i so wish i could of gone .

i'm so gonna have to check them out again when they tour death magnetic in the U.K :D