Jobing Arena @ Glendale, AZ - 10/20/08 & 10/21/08

It was a typical Saturday morning – I was checking emails before heading out to my daughter’s soccer game…and there it was, an email from the MetClub with the subject line: "World Magnetic Glendale, AZ Rehearsal Winner".

"Hey Ma! Look, it's me!"

I couldn’t believe it! And I must confess something – I had kind of forgotten I had even entered. Of course I wasn’t going to win! I opened that email FIRST and probably faster than any other email I’ve ever opened. I started reading it…then my heart stopped for a second, the email said, “you must respond no later than Thursday…or your passes will be given to another clubber.” Remember, I opened this on Saturday – how could I already be two days late? Did the email get lost in cyberspace? Did I miss my chance to see the rehearsal? I was freaking out!!!

So I emailed the MetClub and told them I had just received the email and that ‘yes,’ of course I wanted to go. But it was a Saturday, and I was going to have to stress about this all weekend because no one is working at the MetClub on a weekend, right? So I ran up and told my family, and then got everyone ready for the soccer game and went to that. The whole time during the soccer game, I’m thinking to myself, “How could I have missed this once in a lifetime chance?” After the game, I ran home and checked my email again – nothing was there. I checked again in about half an hour, and there it was, an email back from the MetClub. I was almost afraid to open it. Was it good news or was it bad news? My palms were sweaty and my heart was beating rapidly as I opened the email…and it read, “Sorry, I forgot to change the confirmation date.” YES!!!! I was in. It turned out that I was a winner in the second drawing. Someone else couldn’t make it or didn’t respond. It was indeed my lucky day, the day I thought would never come.

But that’s just the beginning, I also decided to enter my name in the drawing for the meet & greet (M&G) in Arizona. Wouldn’t you know – I won that too! Lightning does strike twice!! After all these years in the MetClub (Note: I’ve been in the MetClub since practically the beginning; my membership number is in the 3,000’s.) and I had never won anything – and then I win twice in about a week. [Ed. This isn’t the 1st time a Virginia Fueler has been on the receiving end of
such luck. Check out George’s luck.]

On a side note, I did get into a M&G once in 1998 at Nissan Pavilion, but that was only because I was one of the first in line at the Met Club booth. [Ed. Before the MetClub began
doing the M&G online lottery, they would give out passes to the M&G via a lottery at
the MetClub booth the day of the show.]

Back to the story…I had less than two weeks to plan the trip, and here’s what I needed to do:

• I had to tell my boss (in fact, I emailed him shortly after winning) that I had to miss a big meeting at work because I was heading to Arizona to see Metallica rehearse!

• I had to ask my mother-in-law to stay at our house and watch the kids for a few days;

• I had to make plane reservations;

• I had to check Ebay and buy seats for the opening night of the Death Magnetic tour the following night;

• I had to call my Aunt who lives in Phoenix and ask her if we could crash at their place (that was convenient… got to see my favorite Aunt and we didn’t have to pay for a hotel room – the trip was expensive enough already!);

• And most importantly, I had to figure out what I should have them sign! More on that in a second...

So a couple of weeks of anticipation go by and finally it’s Monday, the day of the trip. Beckie and I get up really early to catch a 6:30 flight to Phoenix. The flight goes fine, we actually land a few minutes early and we head off to get our rental car. After that we find a place for lunch and then head to my Aunt’s house (who was actually out of town until later that night). We have a couple of hours to hang out and relax, then we headed to Glendale for the M&G.

When we get there, no one knows what is happening. We went to one window and they told us one thing; we went where they told us to go, and then they tell us another thing; and believe it or not, we go there and they tell us something completely different! [Ed. No surprise that local
security is totally clueless!] By this time several of us are wandering around looking like lost puppies. Finally I run into someone that had a MetClub sticker, turns out it’s Jeff (Yeager) from the MetClub and we follow him to the right place. We start shooting the shit with some of the other lucky winners, and I find out Jeff (Yeager) knows Virginia Fuel extremely well and asks me if our Jeff (Holland) is making the trip. He couldn’t believe our Jeff wasn’t coming to Arizona! It would have been cool to hang out with you Jeff! [Ed. Which Jeff are you talking about
hanging out with? Ha Ha! Jeff Yeager and Virginia Fuel go waaaaay back.]

While I’m waiting outside to get in for the M&G, work calls my cell phone and I’m told to check my emails right away as my boss had emailed me and needs me to take care of something ASAP. I check my emails on my phone, but it’s an attachment that I can’t open on my phone, so I say “Fuck it, I’m getting ready to meet Metallica I’m not worrying about it… what are they going to do, fire me?” Then my boss sends me a text message about it when I don’t respond right away, I just ignored that as well…

Okay, enough bitching about work (you would think they could live without me for one day!!). I got with the M&G winners off in one direction, while Beckie and the others who are going to the rehearsal go off in another direction to get in line for the show.

MetClub Jeff takes us into the arena and leads us down a staircase to a bar in the basement. We’re hanging out for probably half an hour – there’s exactly 17 people in the room to meet Metallica… a small, exclusive group for sure! We’re all swapping Metallica stories and also talking to some of the Club employees (who were all very cool). Then we finally get what we were all waiting for, Kirk comes in the room. I happen to be the second person in line. The first person in line had bought a guitar strictly to have them sign, he spent some good money on that! Kirk is pretty cool, pretty laid back. They said you could have two things signed, so I brought the flag from the Death Magnetic box set as well as the daily itinerary spiral bound book from the Summer 1999 Europe Tour (a prize I got at a Virginia Fuel party, thanks Jeff!). Kirk was pretty amazed that I had that and asked where I got it. I told him I won it at a local club party and he said that was cool. Well, this pissed off a couple of Metallica’s security guys. They didn’t believe where I got it, and they thought I bought it off of Ebay. They said I shouldn’t have it…which all just made me think to myself, “this is even cooler to have than I ever thought!” [Ed. The MetClub has no one to blame other than themselves – they sent it to us
as a chapter prize! Ha Ha!]

Rob was the next one to come by, he just thanked people for coming out and said to enjoy the show, not much else. James was next (Damn, is he tall!?!?) and again, he was very cool. I know we exchanged some pleasantries but I honestly don’t remember what they were. I know the guy two down from me completely was flipping out and saying, “I can’t believe I’m here with my hero.” I should mention that we often waited 10-15 minutes in-between the guys coming out and we never knew who was coming out or when…of even if we’d meet them all. So you could imagine our conversations while waiting around, especially after 3 of them came around. Will Lars come out? How cool would that be to meet all of them, and have our things signed by all 4 members of the band. And how often does that happen? I know the first M&G that I went to in 1998, only James and Jason came out.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Lars shows up. Man, is he ever cool. You can tell he really enjoys this. He made sure to look you right in the eye and shake your hand. He asked me where I was from and I said I flew in from Virginia for the show. He quickly said “This isn’t a show, it’s a rehearsal…remember that. This is NOT a show, don’t get your hopes up!” So I said, “Well, I flew out for the rehearsal tonight and I’m staying for the show tomorrow.” He said that was better. Then he asked me if I was a member of Virginia Fuel – how fucking cool is that? I told him ‘yes’ and told him that I’ve hosted a few parties and he said that was cool, and he thanked me for coming out and then moved on. He spent more time with each person than probably the other 3 guys did combined.

When he got through the whole crowd, as he was leaving someone shouted “have a great show tonight” and Lars nodded back at him. So I shouted, “It’s not a show, it’s a rehearsal!” Lars cracked up, pointed at me and said, “He’s right, it’s a rehearsal, don’t you guys forget that!” as he walked away smiling back at me.

Shortly after Lars left, they led us back upstairs and into the arena where the winners of the rehearsal had already scouted out their places around the stage and in the seats. Fortunately, Beckie had found a spot on the rail and the others around her were cool enough to let me walk up and get right on the rail. Of course, remember that this is an arena that holds 18,000 people and there were only 500 of us in there, so it wasn’t exactly crowded.

As I said, there were some cool people around us, and we were thankful for that as Metallica took close to an hour before they got on stage – being fashionably late I guess! Then the lights dimmed and the intro music started to play… it was kind of strange as the crowd didn’t know whether to shout and cheer as they would do at a “real” concert. In fact, the guy next to me said, “Tomorrow, when this music plays the place will be going crazy.” But once Metallica started to play, the crowd instantly went nuts. And how could you not, watching Metallica play with only 500 people in the room – how unreal!

Fight Fire With Fire!

And this really was a rehearsal, sometimes they would stop in the middle of a song and discuss some things, tweak the drums, the microphones, etc. In fact, after "Fight Fire With Fire," Lars yelled to someone “Why didn’t the pyro go off in that one spot?” and they replied, “Rob was too close!” So Lars told Rob where he needed “not to be” during that part of the song and James went to a microphone and said, “We’ve already had one barbeque, we don’t need another one.” In other spots Lars would come over to the crowd and just shoot the shit with us – sometimes asking what we wanted to hear next (and I think just ignoring our pleas.) One guy close to me asked James for a pic and he looked back at him and said “Then what am I going to play with?” He then did throw him a pic after the guy pointed out the supply of them on the stand.

"This isn’t a show, it’s a rehearsal…remember that. This is NOT a show, don’t get your hopes up!”

Overall, Metallica was playing just as if it was a real concert. But then things would just stop and nothing would be happening for a few minutes as they would work some things out. That was actually kind of strange, kind of killed the momentum of the “show” but as Lars said, it was a rehearsal, not a show. In fact, it kind of ended funny. They said thanks for coming and good night, but then they were hanging out on stage so people waited around wondering if they were going to play again. Finally it was apparent that they were done and people started to leave.

The next day we got to hang out with my Aunt and Uncle as they had taken the day off. And then we went to the show, which was the kickoff of the Death Magnetic Tour. Of course the concert was killer, as they always are, but there was nothing too special to report about that.

We headed off to the airport early the next morning. We had to get back to Virginia and back to reality, but how sweet it was to have about 36 hours of our lives focused around Metallica. It was an unbelievable trip!!!