Pros and Cons: Metallica Went Back for Seconds in Arlington Sunday Night

On Friday, The Telegraph (UK) ran a story under the headline, “The once-great Metallica are now metal’s most shameless money-grabbers.”

“In the age of streaming, Metallica have compensated for a shortfall in royalties from traditional record sales by ratcheting up ticket prices to a whopping degree,” says the story. “Long accustomed to serving old wine from new bottles — past marketing gimmicks include allowing fans to vote for set-lists, or performing their best-known albums in full — Metallica’s current ruse is to play entirely different sets over the two nights they appear in each city.”

I mean, yeah? If Taylor Swift can play the same set three nights in a row at Arlington’s AT&T Stadium, why can’t Metallica play two different sets on two different nights at the same venue, with two different groups of openers?

On Friday, we were on the scene as Pantera and Mammoth WVH opened a set whose highlights included “Creeping Death,” “Seek & Destroy” and “Master of Puppets.” During Pantera’s set, a woman was filmed climbing one of the LED screen towers and promptly being apprehended by security in a since-viral video.

The Wednesday prior, we ran a preview of Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo’s son, Tye Trujillo, and his band OTTTO, who played two “Metallica Takeover Weekend” events at Three Links Saturday night (including a show by Dallas band Van Damme, which Trujillo and James Hetfield personally attended, as WFAA reported.)

So with Sunday being something of a grand finale for the weekend of DFW events, why not make the third time the charm?

Pro: The stage design and presentation are truly remarkable.
From a technical perspective, the show was quite a labyrinth. Speaking of David Bowie, certain aspects of the stage design and presentation gave off Glass Spiders Tour energy.

The stage being ring-shaped and placed around the 50-yard line is not exactly a novel part of Metallica’s show, seeing as the “Snake Pit” goes back well over 30 years for the band. Lars Ulrich explained the inspiration behind this in a May 2023 interview with Zane Lowe, saying, “So the Snake Pit started off, one of our managers back in New York in the late '80s, early '90s, the idea that when you would go to a restaurant, that the best seat in the restaurant was actually not in the house, but the best seat was in the kitchen. So in crazy, cool restaurants, if you could somehow get into the kitchen and eat in the kitchen, you were in there where all the action was.”

So yeah, the “Snake Pit” is not exactly new or fresh, but it still commands the attention of the audience. And some bands stick with the same theatrics for the simple reason that it works. Paul Stanley will zipline to the B-stage during “I Was Made for Loving You” until KISS actually makes good on their threats to call it quits, just as Metallica will continue moseying to certain angles of the stage to give specific sections of the stage some love.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Con: Each song overstays its welcome.
"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily. To throw a perfume on the violet …  is wasteful and ridiculous excess," wrote William Shakespeare in King John, which reminds us: Metallica plays each song like they just bargained with an assassin to let them play one last number before they get Swiss cheese-d in the back of the head. Each noodly guitar solo is played like James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett are trying to buy some more time to devise an escape plan, and each verse and chorus that follows said guitar solo is played like the assassin has become wise to their incessant stalling, and they have to save face.

Even their most loved songs, such as “Fade to Black” and “Battery,” were guilty of this. But since those songs are ultimately what fans came to hear, Metallica is given virtually unbridled latitude to milk them. It’s newer tracks like Hardwired … to Self-Destruct’s song “Moth Into Flame” where the steam runs especially dry.

The solution, of course, is not to just completely eschew any new material. (Why record new music if you’re not going to showcase it in a live setting?) The solution is to economize the effectiveness of every second of every song and stick the landing at the right time, no matter what. If that means the song has to clock in at less than three minutes, so be it.

Almost every song Metallica played Sunday night would have been better had it ended at least a couple minutes earlier. There’s almost always, with few exceptions, a moment where the cadence signals an opportune and appropriate end, and right as Metallica inches toward the possibility of executing that ending perfectly, they pick up the tempo and go right back into repeating the same verses and chorus.

Even the entrance music — “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll”) by AC/DC — dragged on longer than it needed to. It would have been perfectly fine to fade it out one minute in as the band members make their grand entry, but seeing as Metallica are the Godfathers of Gaudily Bedazzling the Lily, they had to play all 5 minutes, 15 seconds of that song.

Pro: Hetfield gave a touching tribute to Cliff Burton.
As Metallica played “The Call of Ktulu” from Ride the Lightning, Hetfield gave a brief but touching tribute to former bassist Cliff Burton, who died in September 1986 from a bus crash.

“[We] love you and miss you, Cliff,” Hetfield said.

Con: Metallica played a song from St. Anger and not Lulu.
No one hates Metallica’s music more than Metallica fans.

Ever since their self-titled album, fans have constantly taken great umbrage every time the band departed from precedent. Of course, people who think getting a haircut makes you a corporate sellout are ordinarily not worth impressing, but when they are the ones who made your success possible and can determine your future, being sensitive and accommodating to their whims is not the most unthinkable thing.

Despite this, Metallica have admirably marched to their own beat. Even though fans constantly dunk on St. Anger, the band stands by it even amid persistent backlash. Hetfield even referenced the hate, saying sarcastically on Sunday, “Here’s something from your favorite album” as the band played “Dirty Window.”

And that’s all well and good, but why not play a song from Lulu, Metallica’s collaborative 2011 album with Lou Reed? Fans were just as hostile to that album, but the fact that Metallica clearly made that album for their own enjoyment made it less restrained. That album isn’t better than, say, Kill ‘Em All, but as far as the newer releases go, Lulu reigns supreme.

Even if Metallica doesn’t stand by that album, it would have still been nice to see them troll their haters even more.

Pro: Metallica is for the fans.
It’s a cliché when bands describe their fanbase as a “family,” but isn’t that what fan communities are all about? Hetfield asked how many of the fans in attendance were seeing Metallica for the first time, and well over 30% of the audience cheered. By that point, Hetfield welcomed the newly “initiated” attendees into the family with open arms.

And that’s ultimately what makes seeing your favorite band such a special thing. You’re sharing a moment with other like-minded people, no matter their walks of life.

Just leave it to Metallica to make that moment way longer than it needs to be.