For their 20 year anniversary of the self-titled album (a.k.a. the Black Album), Metallica was visiting Horsens in Denmark, at the newly reworked prison which from now on will be a concert venue.
The show was aptly named State Prison Open Air.

With them, Metallica had brought along two support bands, Gojira and Mastodon, but enough have been said about them elsewhere, and there was no doubt it was for the main act that people had pilgrimaged here from all over the country, heck even from other countries as far as I could hear on the conversations around the place!
The prison could take some 40000 visitors, and the tickets had been sold out after about 38 minutes on the market, so you can imagine the popularity this held!
Outside, shirts were selling for the surprisingly reasonable price of 250 DKR (approx. 33 €), and inside beer was selling at the less reasonable but still understandable price of 50 DKR (approx. 6,5 €). As the site had been open for several hours already, and the entire town before (and during) this had been completely dedicated to giving the best Metallica pre-party ever thrown, people were pumped and ready to party!

“Hello, I’m James and I’m prisoner nr. 1 in this prison”
- James Hetfield (guitar/vocals)

Metallica had for this tour created a new stage which at least I had not seen before, where the floor went out into the crowd in a round catwalk, leaving a special inner-circle in the middle; there was also a heightened walkway behind the drums, and the entire back wall of the stage as well as the walls to either side of the stage were just gigantic video-screens. There were mic’s everywhere so the band could move around as they pleased during the show without being hindered by where and when they needed sing. The same thing could not be said for the audience, but that’s another story.
The show kicked on with the usual Ennio Morricone masterpiece The Ecstasy Of Gold, but with the special addition of the corresponding clip from Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad And The Ugly showing on the video screens. After this the band spurted out on the stage one by one, Hetfield wearing a classic metal vest made of denim and covered with patches, and Lars Ulrich pushing the audience to the boiling point as the band launched directly into Hit The Lights. I noticed Kirk Hammett was playing a nicely painted White Zombie guitar, but it was easy to see that this was more directed at the film than at the band who would later take its name...
Being of Danish origins, it’s not hard to understand that Ulrich, and in extension Metallica, gives the show just a little extra when visiting this small country; for this show, Ulrich was standing up and playing almost as much as he played sitting down, and the crowd was backing him up 100% of the time.
More vintage Metallica was played where the audience proved its worth as we took over the lyrics from time to time, and it was also easy to see that the band-members were enjoying themselves. Especially Hammett and Robert Trujillo were very active on their feet and used the stage to its full potential.
For Whom The Bell Tolls ended with a short solo by Hammett after which the only post-Metallica-album era song was played; Hell And Back from the Beyond Magnetic EP. Why this song was chosen I cannot say, but as I don’t find it very interesting this was a perfect moment to rest my neck-muscles before what was about to come...

“Now we’re off to never never land.”
- Hetfield (guitar/vocals)

After the band had left the stage, the video screens began showing clips around the Metallica album, including studio clips and news clips from the time of the release.
The audience was almost electrified with an anticipation which would soon enough be rewarded. You see, as the band came back on stage, it was now to perform their biggest hitting album ever in its entirety! To put a little twist on things though, Metallica was playing the entire album in reverse, hence starting out with The Struggle Within and then taking their time to work their way all the way to the ending song Enter Sandman.
Of course, there was made place for some breaks and fun stuff in between, it wasn’t all serious business. Thus there were some very loud sing-along sessions in My Friend Of Misery and Enter Sandman, the latter of which also sported a great fireworks show at the beginning and the end of the song. Solo’s were given both by Ulrich and Trujillo, fun to watch and short enough to keep it interesting, and there was an insane amount of headbanging to Don’t Tread On Me (I must confess that I couldn’t get the ICS Vortex version from Metal Hammer’s tribute album out of my head during this whole song).
Hetfield playing an acoustic guitar for Nothing Else Matters was also a nice touch, which made a girl next to me in the audience shed tears...

“Together at last like a family, the Metallica family”
- Hetfield (guitar/vocals)

There’s no question about the self-titled album being monumental in the history of Metallica, but they’ve loads (no pun intended) of other great music as well, and even though they had left the stage after Enter Sandman, the band was not quite ready to let us go yet, and so, within a firestorm across the stage, they came back and ripped the remains of us up with Blackened, after which an enormous amount of explosions, rockets and fires announced the crowd-pleasing power ballad One. Sadly, the timing between the rhythm of the song and the lightshow didn’t click perfectly in this one, even though it was obvious there had been put an effort into making this look good.
With only one song left to go, Hetfield took some time to thank everyone for showing up and once again let us know how happy he and the rest of the band was to have us in the Metallica family, where Ulrich spent the spare time to go and spray water on those who stood closest to the stage.
The show ended with Seek & Destroy, wherein there was released a sea of black bathing balls with the Metallica logo on them for the audience to play around with; most of these were quickly gone again as many saw this as an opportune moment to grab themselves a free souvenir from the show.
After the song ended, the band stayed on for a while to bow and show their appreciation by covering us with truckloads of guitar picks and drumsticks, in case someone had missed out on the balloons and the shirt. I’m sure there wasn’t one of the 40000 visitors who walked away from this concert empty handed.

In retrospect one can always nitpick about details such as Hetfield’s comments being too studied, songs being rushed (I’m thinking about The God That Failed here), or missing this or that song from the setlist, but I can only say that the band seemed genuinely happy to be playing for us, and they gave a lively and compelling show. Possibly not the best the world has ever seen, but damn good nonetheless, and it was certainly worth every penny! This is definitely they way to go with an anniversary show.
If they keep this up, my break between shows with them will not be as long in the future as it has been up till this point.

Setlist:

The Ecstasy Of Gold (Ennio Morricone song)
Hit The Lights
Master Of Puppets
The Shortest Straw
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Solo (Kirk Hammett)
Hell And Back
The Struggle Within
My Friend Of Misery
The God That Failed
Of Wolf And Man
Nothing Else Matters
Through The Never
Don’t Tread On Me
Wherever I May Roam
The Unforgiven
Holier Than Thou
Solo (Lars Ulrich)
Sad But True
Solo (Robert Trujillo)
Enter Sandman
Blackened
One
Seek & Destroy