A brand new arena opened in Copenhagen, and to celebrate this, they had hired Metallica. Not Adele, not Justin Bieber, not Miley Cyrus. Friggin’ Metallica! Metalli’fukin’ca! Let that sink in for a while!
And not only should they open the arena, but they were to open it with four entire concerts! All sold out within minutes. That’s pretty damn amazing!
Sadly though, the Sunday show, which we were supposed to see, was cancelled due to James Hetfield being so ill, the doctor ordered him not to use his voice. It had been bad already during the Friday show, where he asked, and was subsequently denied, the audience if it was ok to cancel the rest of the performance. After that, we were on pins and needles, until the word came down late Saturday evening – no Sunday performance. After this we were in limbo, waiting for word whether or not we would be able to attend one of the next two shows. Tuesday came and went, still no word. Then finally, through the amazing coordination work of LiveNation, we got the chance to attend the final of the originally four shows, on Thursday 9th of February.

In the words of a colleague also attending the show, and I can get fully behind him on this, the Royal Arena was large, but still managed to have a very intimate feel to it. This was supported by Metallica’s custom stage, which was a large capital H, or maybe rather a large diamond shape with little horns coming out on each side, standing in the middle of the floor.
This shape was mirrored in the video screen light rig hanging above the stage, and when the lights went down the graveyard scene from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly began playing on screen, at the same time The Ecstasy Of Gold rolled out of the speakers, marking without a doubt that the biggest of the four was about to hit the stage.
As they did, to enormous cheers from the audience I might add, it was hard to see any sign of illness or fatigue however. The band members hit the stage at running pace, and dived head first into the speedster title track of their latest album, Hardwired.

“Oh man, everyone was into that, so it seemed. Knew the lyrics and everything.”
- James Hetfield (vocals/guitar)

The main focus would not be on the new album however, or new stuff at all for that matter. Only three songs from Hardwired… To Self-Destruct were picked for the show, and other than that, the newest material played dated back to 1997, in The Memory Remains.
I can’t say this was a problem, for me or for the rest of the crowd, who all responded very well to the old classics. It was when Welcome Home (Sanitarium) was played that I got my first goose bumps, and when the band later played The Call Of Ktulu, with a fitting all green video screen, this night proved to be a huge winner! After this, it was a hit parade without end until the show was over. Nothing Else Matters and Enter Sandman may have felt a bit on the nice side, being played straight after the much faster Seek & Destroy and Blackened, but they are both crowd pleasers which did exactly what they were supposed to. Enter Sandman was hurt by the fact that all the lights were turned on for the entire song though. I can only speculate as to the reason for this, but whatever it was, it didn’t work properly. Unless of course, it was to make sure that we knew it was time to leave, and preferably in a hurry.
While on the subject of the setlist, I do want to add, that the time set aside for solos was ridiculously high. No less than three solos for Kirk Hammett, and one for Robert Trujillo. Trujillo’s was more easily acceptable to me, as most of it was spent playing an actual song, (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth, with a bit of freestyling before and after. I’m not one to bash Hammett’s skill, but even though he to padded his solos with songs, snippets only (Mercyful Fate’s Into The Coven and Leper Messiah), one solo would easily have been enough.
It was nice of the band to play their own outro music though, in the form of a snippet of The Frayed Ends Of Sanity.

“It’s a great honour to open this arena! Let’s see if they can get as great fans in here again, as we have tonight!”
- Hetfield (vocals/guitar)

Before we reached the end however, there were lots of goodies for the Metallica fans to bite down on. And selling out a quadruple arena show so quickly showed us just how willing the fans were to get in here and have a good time.
As mentioned by the band itself, the Copenhagen crowd did not hold back when it came to singing. It didn’t matter if there were lyrics involved, or simply a familiar guitar riff – everyone was howling. From floor to top row under the ceiling. The Memory Remains got a healthy helping during the Marianne Faithfull segment, and I was impressed to see real lighters emerging for Nothing Else Matters.
My position was on the floor, and even though the place was sold out, there was still plenty of room to walk around on. This was good, because with the layout of the stage, it meant that the band members were almost constantly on the move as well. Hell, even Lars Ulrich’s drum podium, which was placed dead centre of the stage, revolved slowly, so that he got a chance to face everyone. He also made frequent walks out on the stage, to hand out drum sticks, enough to make a considerable amount of people happy, I’m sure. The rest of the gang also handed out picks by the bucket load, but they waited till the end of the show to do so.
One thing that we could have hoped for, was for the stage to be a little bit higher. I’m not a short man by any standard, but even I sometimes had a hard time following some of the things that went down on stage. For example, there were a couple of giant light bulbs placed at floor level, which I figured would have worked great with Ride The Lightning. Well, the song was never played, and I have no idea if the bulbs were ever switched on.
Given the mixture of people in the crowd, this really wasn’t the place for moshpits or the like, but there was a bit of headbanging among the more hardcore fans, and of course a lot of shouting, cheering, and applause.

The arena itself managed pretty well, all things considered. I’ve already mentioned a bit about the atmosphere, but the sound is also very important. Standing as I did on the floor for Metallica, I have no complaints on this account, but as I had tried standing a bit higher up during the support band, I noticed a bit more of an echo effect which took a little bit away from the feeling. For an arena, it was still quite acceptable though.
What was not acceptable by any standards, is the fact that the bars closed down while there somewhere around five songs left to play. Seriously, what the hell were they thinking?! No, this didn’t have anything to do with the band, but it still helped colour the experience as a whole, and this is definitely something they need to reconsider for their coming shows.

So, no. This wasn’t a perfect gig, but so what? It was damn fine, and I had a great time, as did the people around me. And again, having the world’s biggest metal band open Copenhagen’s newest arena, that feels so good!

Setlist:

It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll) (AC/DC song)
The Ecstasy Of Gold (Ennio Morricone song)
Hardwired
Creeping Death
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Solo (Hammett)
The Memory Remains
Solo (Hammett)
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
Now That We’re Dead
Atlas, Rise!
Solo (Trujillo)
(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth
The Call of Ktulu
One
Master Of Puppets
Solo (Hammett)
Fade To Black
Seek & Destroy
Blackened
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
The Frayed Ends of Sanity (snippet)