Metallica, Glasgow review: 'metal cabaret'

Metallica, Hampden Park, Glasgow ★★★★

The scale of Metallica's M72 tour impressed even before the rock behemoths took to their in-the-round runway stage, dwarfed by skyscraping speaker clusters branded specifically for this show. Their intro music, AC/DC’s It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll), aka the one with the bagpipes, could have been a nod to their locale were it not simply a favourite warm-up choice alongside the trademark Ennio Morricone overture which heralded their arrival in a flurry of drumsticks.

Drone cameras picked out their black clad figures, and the schlock horror detail on Kirk Hammett's custom guitar. Frontman James Hetfield had his choice of microphones depending on what section of the stadium he wanted to play to, bassist Robert Trujillo literally surfed through the crowd at one point, and Lars Ulrich's drumkit periodically descended into the bowels and then re-emerged further round the runway.

His martial breakdown on opening number Creeping Death was greeted like a mass rally and there was no let-up through piledriving sludge rocker For Whom the Bell Tolls, the nosebleed thrash of Hit the Lights and the classic metal influences of their current album title track 72 Seasons.

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Hetfield switched to semi-acoustic for cowboy rocker The Unforgiven before the pyrotechnics were unleashed for the primo thrash thrust of Fuel. However well intentioned, a Scottish-themed Hammett/Trujillo jamming interlude threatened to derail momentum with the latter singing The Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) as if he wasn't entirely sure what “haver” meant. But the set was soon back on track with the anthemic Wherever I May Roam, the lighter-waving ballad Nothing Else Matters and the gnarly Seek & Destroy, accompanied by a drop of huge bouncing beachballs, before the metal cabaret concluded with the hoary melodrama of Master of Puppets, the gothic singalong of Enter Sandman and the ritual throwing of plectrums like sweeties at a pantomime.

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