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ON THE FRONT LINES with Freak |
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ON THE ROAD WITH... FREAK
METALLICA
@ THE SILVER DOME @ Detroit, MI –
7/1/03 It had to happen on a
night I was hammered beyond all belief.
My old lady had just shoveled me into bed after dragging my sorry
ass home with a belly full of Jaeger and pizza.
I was out cold when
the sounds of a commotion started filtering their way through the haze
occupying my head. I opened
one eye just in time to catch an alien lumbering down the hallway towards
my room, silhouetted by blinding lights and rattling as if it were draped
in chains. I struggled into a
sitting position as a beam of light seared the retinas right out of my
eye-sockets.
“Go back to bed…” the beast uttered as
he aimed the light up at the ceiling illuminating my smoke detector and
the reflective lettering on his jacket.
I now realized that it was a fireman standing in my room which just
refocused my fear of being abducted by aliens to being burned alive.
“What’s up?” I
stammered as I tried and get out of bed as he exited. “Do
I need to get the hell outta here or something?
Where’s my dog?”
“The dog’s fine sir,” he quipped over his
shoulder, “He’s outside.
Just go back to sleep, it looks like it was a false alarm.”
The day was off to a
rip-roaring start with me standing there drunk and naked in front of a
bunch of firemen.
I showed up early for
work and was more than ready to start when 5:30a.m. rolled around.
The show flew by pretty quickly and when the clock struck nine, I
was out the door. I had to
make the church by 10:30 a.m. to be ready to do a reading at my uncle’s
funeral Mass or my family would’ve had my head.
I was nervous as hell as I stood there before nineteen relatives,
but I pulled it off, even though I was distracted by the fact that the
altar boy kneeling to my right was wearing a Slipknot shirt under his
vestments.
The Mass ended and we
loaded the casket into the hearse. But as the procession headed for the
cemetery, I ducked out and headed east on I-94 towards Detroit.
I’d been to the
Pontiac Silverdome once before [back in ’96 for a Bears/Lions game], but
never for a concert, so I really didn’t know what to expect from the
enormo-dome ahead of me.
The vibe was very laid
back, as rehearsal gigs usually are, and everyone was in a good mood and
happy to be getting back on the road.
I set up shop in the corner and proceeded to do interviews with
Kirk, Robert, and Larz, while no less than nine small children ran about.
The wait to jam was
delayed for two hours because the bubble-dome allowed sunlight through and
we had to wait for old Sol to set before we could see the stage lighting
in action as well.
I’d snagged a
12-pack of semi-chilled Old Style and taken a seat on the floor between
the light and soundboards before they launched into “Battery”
followed by” “Master of
Puppets” and “Harvester of
Sorrow.” The band was
tight as ever for both old songs like “No
Remorse” and “For Whom the
Bell Tolls” and new songs like “St.
Anger” and “Frantic.”
Now, here’s the good
news. My thoughts on the St.
Anger disc are simply good music mixed poorly.
I like “Frantic,”
“Shoot Me Again,” and “St.
Anger,” but I think ol’ Bob Rock was out of his mind while mixing
them down. What was he
thinking?
Live, the true
Metallica sound is booming and the songs sound awesome.
James has his growl going and they fit in the set between “Blackened,”
“One,” and “Sad But
True” just fine. After
thirteen songs they’d had enough and called it a day, so I hopped back
in my Jeep and went to the nearest hotel and crashed.
The next morning, I drove fifty miles to
some Lite-FM station in Detroit and did the show from one of their
studios. They were horrified
to see me strolling in with a forty of MGD, but I figured they should be
happy since I didn’t drag one of the crack-whores off eight-mile and
bring her along with me. Just another day in rock ‘n’ roll!
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I arrived around 6
p.m. and found the Metallica
guys hanging out backstage.