After last year’s pop-metal support acts (The Darkness and Linkin Park), Metallica are leaving nothing to chance for their second RDS show in a year. After the comparative calm of the fresh-faced Lostprophets, Slipknot’s Irish debut is really something to behold. The sight of 9 masked lunatics against sunny Irish blue skies is truly unnerving – downright scary, even.
Very few metal acts still possess the capacity to make their audience feel as though they’re actually standing in front of the gates of hell, yet when Corey Taylor says to the audience that these songs ‘rip off your head and shit down your throat’, you’re not likely to disagree anytime soon. Still, 10 years ago, I may have been able to find a subliminal message within their walls of black noise, but I’m willing to wager that a person loses this ability upon procuring their first Volvo/credit card/mortgage/ degree. More than anything, Slipknot make me feel old…at the age of 27. Thanks guys.
As Metallica take to the stage amid a cacophony of fireworks, it seems that, despite their sonic brutality, their slick show is beginning to feel a little…well, inauthentic. Surely James Hetfield is a little long in the tooth to resort to limp one-liners about how great Ireland is to flatter the audience? Still, there is something hugely impressive about Metallica’s consummate professionalism…here, after all, are a band who still don’t look remotely bored after playing ‘Sad But True’, ‘Wherever I May Roam’, ‘Master Of Puppets’ or ‘Enter Sandman’ for the billionth time. Cutting a rather imposing presence, Hetfield and Kirk Hamnett stride the stage, while newcomer Robert Trujillo looks even more at home in the band than he did at last year’s gig; perhaps even more so than Jason Newstead ever did.
Having left it off the bill at last year’s gig (much to the audience’s visible chagrin), they encore with a glorious cover of ‘Whiskey In The Jar’. Amid it all, on-stage fireballs threaten to singe the eyebrows off the first row, and the sounds of bullets and helicopters make for an apocalyptic finale. In fact, it feels a little like Imax…but with a much better soundtrack.