Metallica Brings Redemption to the Prudential Center, 2-1-2009

The Worst Place in The World

It's the last show of the "Death Magnetic" tour, on Super Sunday, in beautiful downtown Newark New Jersey. It's been nearly 28 years since I last saw James Hetfield, Kirk Hammet, Lars Ulrich, and the late Cliff Burton from third row center at the Rainbow Music Hall in Denver CO. Like millions of others in my generation, I came of age, went through changes, and somehow survived to middle age with Metallica providing the soundtrack. I grew up with these guys.

The Prudential Center in Downtown Newark New Jersey is modern looking and impressive. Bright electronic advertisements, visible and readable from several blocks away blaze out from behind expanses of large plate glass panes. Cylindrical entry portals like clear towers on some space-lord's castle, give a clear view of escalators and stairways going up to the various levels of the arena. Much like adjoining downtown financial district, it looks clean and modern. It certainly is doesn't look like One of The Worst Places in The World.

The city of Newark, decaying and crime-ridden with a very high homicide rate, is in fact one of the worst places in the country if not the world. Some theorize that an unknown percentage of the 'undesirables' that Giuliani et al drove out of New York of migrated to Newark, where they still fit right in.

We park the car a few blocks off of the tiny Portuguese enclave on Ferry Street, and walk towards the flashing beacon. Crossing a dark boulevard of six lanes, I glance over at a high, graffiti-ridden concrete wall, and the words "Where's my f*---ing bailout?" stand out from the standard gang and street artist fare (literally, the asterisk was used instead of U in the "f-word" by some politically disaffected soul, still clutching for some shred of civility).

The Worst Venue in The World

Metallica's notoriously touchy about the rights to their work and images. I'd called the venue, talking to someone in the management office, asking if cameras would be allowed, and was assured that a small digital camera would be no problem. I beg my photographer Nina to go with me and her mom, even though she's not a headbanger like me, or a selective metal fan like her mother. Nina decides to put up with her weird parents; I'd told her that I really needed some shots from her like her work from the Tokio Hotel show in Denver.

Like Newark New Jersey itself, the Prudential Center is a frontrunner for the Worst Place in the World title, outward appearances notwithstanding.

First, they'd lied to me on the phone, or perhaps spoken out of sheer ignorance. Knowing exactly how touchy metallica is about images and copyrights, I tried to find out if cameras were allowed. Someone in the Prudential Center management office assure me that small, 'non-professional' cameras were permissible. Cameras are not allowed. We try to get Nina's camera in, but they search her tiny purse, and demand that we surrender the memory chip until after the show. We never did get it back.

We have assigned seating in the fourth row of the top level. The stage is very far away, and unlike most modern arenas, the Prudential Center has no huge screens for the folks in the cheap seats.

The Sword opens the show. I like The Sword, when I hear them on the internet radio, that is. I can tell that they are working hard, doing a good set, and playing well.

The Prudential Center's abominable acoustics render The Sword's lyrics incomprehensible and obscure the good, melodic old-school metal under a layer of mud, cymbals, and over-amped drums.

Machine Head comes on next, I haven't heard much of them before; just a couple of their songs that made the mainstream rock radio stations. What I do know is that they are death-metal rap, and that their value is heavily in their lyrics.

The Prudential Center wrecks Machine Head's set too. All I can tell is that they have a really good drummer, and that the guitarists actually do know how to play.

This is turning into a complete disaster, or at least a severe disappointment and waste of money we can't afford to waste.

Then Metallica comes one stage.

Metallica, after all these years leading up to a hard won and well-deserved induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had the equipment, engineers, and professionalism to create real music in what is undoubtedly most poorly adapted sports arena I've ever been in.

Better yet, they came on pure old school, and all of us in 35 and older demographic knew all the lyrics by heart. I'm sure the sound quality was better down in the general admission area where people we standing on one side of the stage, and braving a mosh-pit on the other. I'm too old and tired for either of those options, but Metallica got me up out of my seat anyway.

High points included songs like Creeping Death, Blackened, Master of Puppets, Enter Sandman, and from their latest album, "Death Magnetic", The Day that Never Comes (which I recently listed as one the 10 best metal songs of 2008). Finally, the show ended with a frenetic and maniacal rendition of Seek and Destroy, turning our clocks back all the way to "back in the day."

The light shows, pyrotechnics, lasers and 6 gigantic metal coffins hanging ominously over the stage, moving, changing colors, lowering down to just over the band's heads, raising, changing angles vertically, horizontally moving as if in response to some magnetic field kept the "Death Magnetic" concept visible throughout the performance.

The audience was diverse and multi-ethnic, ranging in age from six months to over 60, with New Jersey Hells Angels and off duty cops drinking insanely overpriced beer side by side. The kids loved it, but the old folks understood it in a way made possible only by the 20 to 30 year journey from the prime of youth to middle age.

It was all about being alive though, and as my generation of metalheads is drawn closer to the coffin by that irresistible magnetism, we still shout, we raise our fists and scream at those who blacken our world (Blackened). Rejecting enslavement by politicians ('Creeping Death" and its rendition of the biblical Book of Exodus) and cocaine (Master of Puppets) we are still alive, and Metallica is still here to let us know that. We are still a force to be reckoned with. We can still seek and destroy.

Note:

I thought about quoting some snippets of lyrics here and there, but if you're a Metallica fan, you already know them. If you don't know Metallica's lyrics, I highly recommend getting to know them. Like everything else, you can find them online.