Fortunately, Columbus, Ohio is only a 5 hour drive from Blacksburg, VA. I was already in town for the Maryland-Virginia Tech ESPN Thursday night football game (VT won 23-13!). Jimbo and Joie drove up the morning of the show on Sunday (11/9), and then we headed out for Columbus...all four of us cramped in a tiny rental vehicle! Yippee!
Driving from Blacksburg to Columbus means we had to go through West (By-God) Virginia, which is always as adventure. We saw some funny things along the way...
Don't mess with the "Cadillac Kid"!
Also along the way, we must have seen at least half a dozen dead dear along the road, including one on top of a car.
It was pretty freaking cold in Columbus, but we got in line anyways. The MetClub line was pretty long. Looking at the fall '08 US tour schedule, this was pretty much the only show in the midwest, so it's no surprise that a lot of MetClubbers came to this show.
Eventually, Ron and Brad showed up and got in line with us.
Ron went to some earlier shows on the US tour and said that the MetClub's new ticket policy (letting MetClubbers in earlier than anyone else) worked out great. We shall see...
The 1st opening act was The Sword. The Sword was okay. They had some cool riffs. Their drummer (Trivett Wingo) and lead singer/guitar (J.D. Cronise) are from Roanoke, Virginia. Also from the floor/rail you couldn't hear the singer sing at all! What the fuck is up with sound system?
Next up - Down. I was kind of psyched to seem them. I really like their 1st album, Nola. It was also interesting to see Phil Anselmo again. I've seen him a ton of times when he was in Pantera. And true to form, he still sometimes acts like an idiot on stage. He repeatedly pounded his forehead with the microphone until the stiches in his forehead (presumably from pounding the microphone into his forehead at shows ealier on the tour) started to bleed. Lovely, Phil, very lovely. I think the last time I saw Phil in concert was in 1996 with Pantera. Wasn't that when Phil talked shit about Metallica? Yah, how did that work out for you, Phil?
I also FINALLY got to see the fat guy (Down's guitarist) from Crowbar (an obscure heavy metal band). I have vivid memories of a Crowbar video from Headbanger's Ball stuck in my head ("All I had, I gave!"). But the "fat guy" must have lost some weight and gotten shorter, because he wasn't as big and fat as I remember him on that video...oh well. It was still cool (for me) to finally see the "fat guy" from Crowbar!
Fat Guy from Crowbar
The problems with not being able to hear anyone singing continued when Metallica came on. I could hear James okay, but it wasn't as loud as a normal Metallica concert.
As always, the show was great. The setlist was prett cool - "Leper", "Lightning", "Die, Die" and George's favorite Metallica song - "Jump in the Fiyah". Although, I wish they would play another song other than "Seek and Destroy" as the last song the setlist. I'm freaking getting tired of hearing that song played last!
Metallica had a similar stage setup as the "Madly in Anger with the World" Tour in 2003-04. I just which they brought back the Snake Pit!
The new stuff off Death Magnetic sounded AWESOME live. I was somewhat surprised from the amount of people singing along to the new songs. When "St. Anger" was released in 2003, not as many people sang along to songs off that album.
As all of you know by now, when Metallica starts to play "Seek and Destroy" a bunch of black Metallica beach balls drop down from the ceiling. I initially thought that this was kind of cheesy, but hey - I got myself a beach ball! (Why exactly do I need one???)
You can barely see me, Jimbo, George, Joie, Ron, etc.
Picture from MetOnTour.com
After a brutal drive back to Blacksburg, Virginia (George did most of the driving!!! Thank GOD!) we finally got back to George's place around sunrise and crashed HARD!
