Voodoo Music Experience and Rehage Entertainment presents Metallica…
Another fantastic Voodoo Music Experience has come and gone and this one had some surprises and changes in store. Voodoo announced Metallica as Saturday night headliner a couple weeks before the festival got underway, after a cancellation by Green Day at the eleventh hour. Green Day was supposed the be the headlining draw for Saturdays event, but after meltdown in Vegas (or what some call a true punk rock moment) Billie Joe Armstrong dropped off the radar to take care of himself and Voodoo was left in a quandray.
Metallica stepped up to the invite and challenge on short notice, and fans seemed thrilled that such a monster of a band would be at the event and finish off a great day 2 of the festival. Metallica stormed the stage to kick things off with “Hit the Lights” and the sea of people began to mosh and surf and scream along to the chorus as the band took over the park. Hetfeild snarled his way into “Master of Puppets”, got the crowd chanting ‘Master, Master’, and kept yelling “C’mon N’awlins’” to the thrall, and seemed to get the drawl pretty accurate.
A few songs in James Hetfield joked to the crowd, “WE ARE GREEN DAY! Except taller!” and the crowd cheered and laughed, and Metallica continued to hit hard with “Harvester of Sorrow”, “Sanitarium”, “Sad But True”, and mid set the pyro kicked in and everyone was treated to explosions racking the stage and fireworks lighting the sky. Flames lit up the side stages and Kirk and bassist Robert Trujillo ran back and forth across the stage while Hetfield took a stance center stage and belted out “Fade to Black”. Metallica was in pure form and sounded tremendous throughout the night, with no stops or slow down, just pounding classic after classic from their huge repertoire. Hetfield shined on “Nothing else Matters” and Metallica ended the set with a raging “Enter Sandman” while the bodies flew, pyro lit it up again and the crowd went wild.
The set was a mix of career old and new, but the real early classic Metallica kicked in on the encore. After the band retook the stage, Hetfeild and Hammett kicked off the opening lines of Green day’s “American Idiot” and the fans delivered on the lyrics, until Hetfield stopped and joked, “that’s all we had time to learn”. Giving kudos to their bay area neighbors Green Day, Metallica wished Billie Joe well, and then the encore opened with “Creeping Death” and from that point was a crazy finale to a great night. Metallica hammered out “Battery” followed closely by “Seek and Destroy” and the crowd screamed along for the final number before Saturday’s Voodoo Experience came to a crashing close.
See highlights, Info and photos from this year’s Voodoo Experience at http://thevoodooexperience.com/
