Went to Metallica last night at MSG.

Here’s the Setlist!

1. That Was Just Your Life
2. The End Of The Line
3. Creeping Death
4. The Shortest Straw
5. Fade To Black
6. Broken, Beat And Scarred
7. My Apocalypse
8. Sad But True
9. One
10. The Judas Kiss
11. The Day That Never Comes
12. Master Of Puppets
13. Dyers Eve
14. Nothing Else Matters
15. Enter Sandman

Encore:
16. Last Caress (Misfits cover)
17. Trapped Under Ice
18. Seek & Destroy

For a more casual Metallica fan, the setlist was a little Death Magnetic + Old stuff heavy. Not a lot of famous singles in there.

The performance was strong and the lighting, sound, and stage production was top notch as always.

Apparently it’s Kirk’s birthday and they pied the living hell out of him after Seek and Destroy. He was totally coated in Whip Cream and paper plates were stuck to his back and legs.

All 4 guys seemed really excited to be in NYC and spent a lot of time after the show taking pictures with front row fans and their signs, throwing guitar picks and drum sticks, and of course punting their huge beach balls as far as they could off the stage.

So we managed to score a couple tickets to the “secret” Evanescence warmup show.

Apparently they have some huge 40k person show in Brazil coming up and wanted to do a test set since it’s been 2 years since they toured.

Amy Lee’s voice was a lot stronger than the last time we saw them. The setlist was solid, but sadly lethy did not score a hard copy of it… they had made notes on lighting and sound errors they needed to fix for the Brazil show! For a change the backing band was not virtual statues in the background. Finger Eleven’s guitarist joined them and had a lot of energy – especially compared to the actual band member lead guitarist.

In my opinion the drummer stole the show. He was never introduced and I have NFC who he is, he looked 16 or younger and he rocked. He twirled his sticks continually between beats, flung them up in the air and would jump up and down to do the big crash cymbal sequences. I saw him break (and subsequently launch into the crowd) at least a half dozen sticks during the show.

Sorry, once again no picks. We really need to get a point and shoot that can be smuggled into shows!

Halloween was our 3rd concert night in a row.

Weezer @ Hammerstein.

I have to say, the costume creativity factor was quite high with the crowd.

Light Bulb man was annoying because he was like 9 feet tall and lit up blocking part of our view… but there were some great costumes…. and quite a few “team” costumes like Peter Pan, Captain Hook + Tinkerbell…. Wayne and Garth…. Mario, Luigi and Toad. I saw a David Bowie that was nicely done.

We got to Hammerstein just as the 2nd opener played their song I know. It sounded like the radio version. They were a 2 person band with a synthesizer playing the other parts of the track. “Meh”

Weezer played a good set (Lethy got the setlist, as usual!). Rivers had a ton of energy, he never stopped moving.

They invited fans on stage to undress them from their costumes during Undone. I can only imagine how sick of playing that song they must be and they’ve gotta constantly be coming up with new ways to keep it fresh.

Rivers did the “Island in the Sun” loop-prepping again like he did at the Hartford show. It was cool to see the sound guys scurrying around and analyzing wave peaks to make sure they timed the loops right.

Near the end they did a cover of Lady GaGa’s Pokerface. It was hard to tell if it was a farce or not.

Hopefully pictures from Ken to follow!

Night #2 was pretty epic too!

Maybe it was the drain of commuting to MSG for concerts and the lack of sleep, etc but night 2 didn’t quite live up to night #1.

All told, it was still awesome.

Aretha was a diva… she didn’t share the stage particularly well.

Jeff Beck was insanely talented, but honestly there is only so much instrumental jamming I can tolerate.

Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top was an awesome surprise. Their rendition of Foxy Lady was pretty good.

Metallica sounded really good. Their time with Lou Reed was awkward. Ozzy was great, sadly he only played 2 songs. At his age and being used to his TV persona moreso than his stage persona, it was awesome to see how much energy he still brings. Ray Davies of the Kinks was a nice surprise.

U2 closed things out. Bruce Springsteen came out with Patti Smith for a song. Which they played twice. Because Patti was off beat. On a song she wrote. Twice. Everyone kinda felt bad for her.

Later, mid-song Black Eyed Peas joined U2. Bono stole Fergie’s parts of that song.

Then when Mick Jagger came charging out, there seemed to be more energy again. Mick and Fergie had a little back and forth thing going on which seemed like they were having a lot of fun.

Night ended on an odd note where the house lights were off and nothing happening for maybe 5 or 10 minutes. It seemed like there was a chance there would be another encore… but then there wasn’t.

Oh well. Here’s the setlist!

Jerry Lee Lewis:

“Great Balls of Fire”

Aretha Franklin:

“(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (band instrumental)
“Baby I Love You”
“Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)”
“Make Them Hear You”
“Chain Of Fools” (with Annie Lennox)
“Theme From New York, New York”
“Think” (with Lenny Kravitz)

Aretha Franklin encore:

“Respect”

Jeff Beck:

“Drown In My Own Tears”
“People Get Ready” (with Sting)
“Freeway Jam”
“Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers”
“Let Me Love You Baby” (with Buddy Guy)
“Big Block”
“Rice Pudding”
“Rough Boy” (with Billy Gibbons)
“Foxy Lady” (with Gibbons)
“A Day In the Life”

Metallica:

“For Whom the Bell Tolls”
“One”
“Turn the Page”
“Sweet Jane” (with Lou Reed)
“White Light/White Heat” (with Reed)
“Iron Man” (with Ozzy Osbourne)
“Paranoid” (with Osbourne)
“You Really Got Me” (with Ray Davies)
“All Day and All Of the Night” (with Davies)
“Stone Cold Crazy”
“Enter Sandman”

U2:

“Vertigo”
“Magnificent”
“Because the Night” (with Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith)
“Because the Night” (second take, with Springsteen and Smith)
“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” (with Springsteen)
“Mysterious Ways”/”Where Is the Love?” medley (with Black Eyed Peas)
“Gimme Shelter” (with Mick Jagger, Fergie)
“Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” (with Jagger)

U2 encore:

“Beautiful Day”