When Blind Dead Tom Met Old Grey James

You know it’s a little weird when you meet one of your old heroes who you’ve kind of fallen out of favour with (ref: Some Kind Of Monster). You immediately drop all grievances you may have had with said person and you’re that 14 year old kid again jumping around your bedroom to ‘Fight Fire With Fire’. This is exactly what happened when I met James Hetfield.

I started listening to Metallica when I was 14. My first exposure to the band was ‘Ride The Lightening’. This still remains my favourite Metallica album to date but due to a rise in my school of knives, weed smoking, baggy jeans and the Wu-Tang I lost track of Metallica in a haze of urban marketing. It was only when I managed to steal a copy of ‘Re-Load’ from my mate Dino (Dino if you are reading this, even though it’s shit, you are NEVER getting that CD back....). It was shit. Too shit for Metallica. I could have sworn that Metallica were better than this so I went back and referenced ‘Master Of Puppets’, ‘Kill ‘Em All’ and even some of the second ‘Garage Inc’ disc and all of a sudden they were back. Those fucking hairs standing up on the back of my neck!

I remember being so into Metallica that after school was spent standing at the bus stop on the north circular with my friend Kye trying to do impressions of James Hetfield. Chuffing down on cheap ciggie after cheap ciggie trying to get the harsh, raspy sound of Hetfield’s voice on the earlier records and almost throwing up in the process. Good times.

I managed to keep my cool with Hetfield. Completely the opposite of when I met Slayer’s Kerry King when I almost pissed myself with excitement and couldn’t stop saying “Dude, you rule!” and “fuck Kerrang! Magazine!” in regard to their ‘3K’ review of Slayers live performance. I bumped into him in the now defunct Virgin Megastore in the magazine section reading reviews of his show at the Reading festival. I still stand by my comments by the way. Fuck Kerrang! Magazine but I digress....

I’d finished work early to work on a script and to work on my drinking with my friend Hardeep. We’d been drinking for a while whilst writing and recording before Hardeep mention that he wanted to The Great Frog jewellers on Ganton Street to buy himself a ring. I was reluctant at first. I was too pre-occupied with my beer but I’m glad Hardeep twisted my arm to go. After all we did have a date with metal destiny.

It was only when we got there and I saw my flatmate G (who works out of there) with Metallica book by photographer Ross Halfin and my ‘Death Magnetic’ CD under his arm. It was then that he told me that James fuckin’ Hetfield was downstairs in the basement with Reino designing some custom, platinum tour jewellery for the band.

The man was cool to talk to. I think there was an element of automated response. If you play in the biggest metal band in the history I’m sure you have to train yourself in dealing with fans but after Hardeep cracked him with a few questions and he was eventually really cool to talk to. He had fantastic memory of all the gigs I’d been to down to the set list and everything. After a handshake and a picture he was off to Knebworth to play at the horrifically named Sonispshere festival.

Whatever your views on Metallica or to anybody who has ever been a fan of any Metallica album, I dare you not to be 100% stoked after meeting anybody in the metal world as epic and significant as James Hetfield.

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Nine Inch Nails & Jane's Addiction - Live @ The o2, London 15/07/09

'Wave Goodbye'. It's printed on the t-shirts, it's on the tour posters and all over the internet but it's only when I arrived at the o2 to witness all of this commotion that it starts to actually sink in. That’s right; Trent Reznor is calling it a day after an amazing twenty year career under the Nine Inch Nails guise. Hard to believe really after such a successful run of amazing albums backed up by years of amazing tours and memorable live shows. But first, the co-headliners…..

Opening with 'Three Days' Jane’s Addiction seemed to be on a fast track to glory but quickly divert off into a world of just going through the motions. The visible tension between Perry Farrel and Dave Navaro on stage was off putting and took the magic away from their performance despite playing the classics ‘Stop!’ and ‘Ocean Size’. As for the encore performance, the band begrudgingly eek out ‘Jane Says’.

Whether it was intentional, letting Reznor and co. reap the glory of their last UK headline show or not, the Jane's Addiction performance was mediocre at best. It's a shame because they are capable of so much more and I believe they owed the fans a lot more considering the ticket price alone was pushing the £40 mark. If I wanted to see middle of the road toss I'd pick up a copy of NME magazine. (Oooooh snap!) Either way Jane’s Addiction have seemed to have lost their love for their music and each other.

Nine Inch Nails, performance wise, couldn’t be further removed from their co-headliners. Trent Reznor backed by Robin Finck, Justin Meldal-Johnson and Iian Rubin start to play with the house lights still on, opening with ‘Now I’m Nothing’ before being plunged into ‘Terrible Lie' backed by strobe lighting and a gnarly digital backdrop. Epileptics need not apply.

NIN don’t look like a band of the brink of disbanding. Reznor, the ring leader, conducts the band into a swirling mass, writhing around on a stage which looks more like the bowels of some mechanical hellhound than a band playing the most popular stage in Europe. Nine Inch Nails plow through an amazing set, blistering through Downward Spiral favorites ‘Heresy’, ‘Reptile’ and ‘March Of The Pigs’ and even throw in a version of David Bowie’s ‘I’m Afraid Of Americans’. A full on, industrial, assault on the senses.

As if this gig wasn’t special enough Reznor thanked us all for the support over the past twenty years before bringing on none other than Gary Newman for sterling renditions of ‘Metal’ and ‘Cars’. NIN come full circle, going back to where it all began with ‘Down In It’ and ‘Head Like A Hole’ taken from the first full length ‘Pretty Hate Machine’. Guitars, amps, synthesizers and keyboards are trashed and are thrown around the stage as Nine Inch Nails go out with a bang.

“Everyone I know goes away in the end”. Poignant lyrics from Reznor as he and the band play encore ‘Hurt’ to close the show. An emotional farewell to a beloved band but there was still resistance from fans who couldn’t understand why Reznor was calling it a day. Wouldn't you rather see Nine Inch Nails go out on top like they did tonight rather than Reznor dragging is liver spotted corpse across the stage 20 years down the line? I rest my case. Nine Inch Nails gave a performance for the ages tonight. A fitting farewell to an absolutely astonishing band. Thanks for the memories, Trent.

This and many other live reviews are available on http://www.caughtinthecrossfire.com/