After months of anticipation, weeks of rehearsal and hours of standing in line for the merch table to buy a commemorative t-shirt, fans finally got to see Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony christen the new home of the Golden State Warriors in the Mission Bay with a sold-out show for 16,000 on Friday, September 6.
The concert at Chase Center, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Bay Area metal group’s first collaboration with the orchestra in 1999, was called “S&M2” – as in Symphony and Metallica, the sequel – and drew fans from all over the world who paid upwards of $9,000 a ticket on the secondary market for the privilege of being in the room.
With the four members of Metallica – singer James Hetfield, guitarist Kirk Hammett, bassist Robert Trujillo and drummer Lars Ulrich – playing on a circular, revolving stage in the center of the arena floor, surrounded by 75 members of the symphony and conductor Edwin Outwater, there wasn’t a bad seat in the house as the musicians opened the evening with a cover of Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” before tilting into the instrumental “The Call of Ktulu,” firmly establishing the evening’s cinematic tone.
The three-hour concert was split into two parts. The first half felt refined, showcasing the interplay between Metallica’s thundering riffs and the symphony’s sweeping strings on brooding songs like “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Memory Remains.”
Despite the visual dissonance of seeing people in the audience clad in head-to-toe black banging their heads to celestial harp flourishes, it made perfect sense — the orchestra highlighting the inherent drama and friction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band’s music, giving it additional muscle and speed in the process.
“There is no place on this planet Metallica would rather be tonight than here with you,” said Ulrich.
Outwater seemed to relish being onstage as much as the band members, flailing his arms, leaping in place and clearly breaking a sweat as he led the orchestra with his wild gestures.
When Metallica performed with the symphony in 1999, its brute force overpowered the accompaniment. On Friday, Outwater brought balance to the mix, asserting the strings and percussion while giving Metallica wide berth to, well, be Metallica.
The second half of the show featured an opening set by the San Francisco Symphony’s veteran Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, who academically introduced the metal-heads in the crowd to Prokofiev’s “Scythian Suite, Op. 20, Second Movement,” explaining it represents “where classical music and heavy metal fuse and combine.”
He was then joined by Metallica for a run through Alexander Mosolov’s “Iron Foundry;” and a solo turn by Hetfield and the symphony on a new-agey version of “The Unforgiven III.”
Thomas’s portion felt like an outlier — a concert within a concert that didn’t quite fit with the larger mood of the night. It felt like the product of separate rehearsals, conversations and ideas, one that didn’t necessarily resonate with the shaggy crowd, many of whom sat down for the first time all night and didn’t get back up until it was over.
It also made the second set feel discordant, moving from a tender rendition of the ballad “All Within My Heads” to a heavily distorted version of “Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth),” from 1983’s “Kill ‘Em All,” performed as a solo by the symphony’s principal bassist Scott Pingel as a tribute to Metallica’s late founding bass player Cliff Burton (whose 94-year-old father was in the audience).
For The Chronicle’s ultimate guide to the new Chase Center, go to https://projects.sfchronicle.com/guides/chase-center
The first ever setlist at @chase_center! And night one of #SandM2 is in the books.
433 people are talking about this
Metallica and San Francisco Symphony Setlist – Chase Center, Friday, Sept. 6
Set I
1. The Ecstasy of Gold (Ennio Morricone cover) (performed by the San Francisco Symphony)
2. The Call of Ktulu
3. For Whom the Bell Tolls
4. The Day That Never Comes
5. The Memory Remains
6. Confusion
7. Moth Into Flame
8. The Outlaw Torn
9. No Leaf Clover
10. Halo on Fire
Set II
11. Scythian Suite, Op.20 , Second Movement (Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev cover) (performed by the San Francisco Symphony)
12. Iron Foundry (Alexander Mosolov cover)
13. The Unforgiven III
14. All Within My Hands
15. (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth
16. Wherever I May Roam
17. One
18. Master of Puppets
19. Nothing Else Matters
20. Enter Sandman
Commentaires
Enregistrer un commentaire