Mar 16, 2004 04:54 PM
2220 Views
(Updated Mar 16, 2004 04:54 PM)
METALLICA
James Alan Hetfield --lead vocals
Lars Ulrich--drums
Kirk lee Hammett--lead guitar
Robert Trujillo--bass
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Jason Newsted--former bassist
Dave Mustaine--former lead guitarist
Cliff Burton--former bassist
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In April of 1999, Metallica performed two shows with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Symphony & Metallica (S&M) has now become a collector's item. I have followed metallica for over a decade now. Just when it seemed like the band was running out of steam, they rocked the whole world by jamming with San Francisco Symphony orchestra.
I wouldn't want to comment on the past of Metallica.....but what I would like to do, is to give you my thoughts on this particular album.
I could only wish to meet my heroes one day when they finally decide on coming to india.
The Symphony opens the show, with ''Ecstacy of Gold'', the original composition of
Ennio Morricone which was the original soundtrack of ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ''.........and I could feel the intensity and the changes they made in that song, and I could feel the crowd roaring, I could sense the initialization of a war-zone-like, hair-raising event right ahead.
When the orchestra was done with ''ecstacy'', the band members arrived one by one, and boy-o-boy, did they get a roar..................they followed it up by ''The call of Ktulu''--another master-piece of music. ''The call'' was a damn good song on its own, but when I heard it with the orchestra jamming with the guys, the feeling that I had after that song had been played, cannot be described in english, I would have to plug u into matrix and then establish a tcp-ip connection between my brain and yours, while listening to ''the call'', for you to know how I felt. This is because I don't have a good vocabulary to express myself--not that the oxford dictionary does not have enough words in it.
From there on, it was MUSICAL HARMONY between two entirely different worlds of music, two entirely different classes of musicians, resulting into-''a pure stroke of genius''......the timing of the trained symphony orchestra players sampled on the immensely gifted members of ''METALLICA''.
Master of Puppets, Of Wolf And Man, The Thing That Should Not Be, Fuel, The Memory Remains, No Leaf Clover, Hero Of The Day, Devil's Dance, Bleeding Me, Nothing Else Matters, Until It Sleeps, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Minus Human, Wherever I May Roam, The Outlaw Torn, Sad But True, One, Enter Sandman, Battery..were the other songs....
James was rocking as ever with his devilish and broad array of vocals steaming up a down the oddest of octaves. His shear vocal presence was enough to drive the fans crazy. and for the not-so-big fans of his, he still made it up to them by the great show he put on. And for all the people who walked away from metallica, during their slump period, well he turned there heads too...........ha ha sucka.......
For lars it was yet another session, where he had to bang the head that didn't bang.
He pumped and pumped and kept on pumping till the very last second of ''battery''. and he really scored with ''master of puppetz'' and ''one''. He is a true legend.
Jason blead once again...........as usual............
And for Kirk Hammett, he slam-duncked it. He lived up to the expectations of his fans , who crowned him as the GOD-OF-GUITAR. He smoked his master pieces once again.
?S&M? is certainly a unique album. Combining the raw power of Metallica with the refined precision of a symphony orchestra was certainly a gamble, but it paid off. Metallica deserves much praise for making this album, and Michael Kamen deserves just as much for integrating Metallica and the orchestra so well. The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra also deserves credit for their willingness to collaborate with a different group of musicians from that with which they usually work.
After S&M, they rocked again by giving us I DISAPPEAR. And finally the much awaited ST.ANGER.
Metallica never gives up. I still believe that the band has something left in them, though they sometimes give an impression that there is '' no more '' of metallica left..
