Live Nation presents Metallica's 40th Anniversary Celebration
Chase Center
Terry A Francois Blvd at South St, San Francisco, CA 94158 USA
7:30 PM, Friday, December 17, 2021

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setlist

[7:44 PM] {lights down; 40 years video documentary}
[7:51 PM] {band out to yack a bit}
[7:55 PM] {JH: we're gonna leave you with DJ Lord and MC Dean Delray – see you in about an hour}
[7:59 PM] {DJ Lord starts scratchin'; Dean Delray yacks about this and that (nothing worth keeping track of – the DJ was more interesting: he played a good selection of old metal tunes, mostly straight}
[8:20 PM] {Sitting all folded up tight and listening to a bad comic and a DJ isn't all that interesting, so I take a break from the pre-show to make a lap around the upper ring of the lobby/foyer. Plenty of other folks out here: long lines for merch, food, and drinks. Plenty of other folks just hanging out or walking around like me. Once I complete my lap I tack on some extra steps by scouting out the shortest emergency exit path and best route to the SW corner where SF Muni buses will load after the show.}
[8:44 PM] {end of the pre-show; stage techs out to break down the DJ rig and do final setup for the show}
[9:04 PM] {lights down; AC/DC Long Way to the Top blasting from the PA; then Ecstasy of Gold underneath Jason Momoa's Metallica story video}

1. [9:11 PM] {walk-on music from the PA} » Hit the Lights
2. [9:14 PM] Creeping Death ☼
3. [9:21 PM] Trapped Under Ice
   [9:25 PM] {band offstage; Sanitarium video; band back}
4. [9:27 PM] Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
   [9:33 PM] {band off again; drum riser rotated 90 degrees by stage techs; Jason Newstead video; band back}
5. [9:35 PM] Orion
   [9:44 PM] {James Hetfield thanks speech to former band members, crew, fans, et cetera}
6. [9:45 PM] The Shortest Straw
   [9:51 PM] {band offstage; One video with pyro ☼ and war sounds; band back}
7. [9:52 PM] One
   [10:00 PM] {JH jokes: I'm kinda starting to like that song}
8. [10:01 PM] Sad But True
9. [10:07 PM] Nothing Else Matters
10. [10:12 PM] King Nothing
    [10:18 PM] {band musings video; drum riser rotated another 90 degrees}
11. [10:22 PM] Fixxxer
    [10:29 PM] {JH claims that was a breakout (it was!); more yack: “There’s something I’ve gotta tell you, man… Breadfan”}
12. [10:30 PM] Breadfan ☼
    [10:34 PM] {band off again; S&M tune played on video/PA; band back}
13. [10:36 PM] No Leaf Clover
    [10:41 PM] {JH yack about St. Anger}
14. [10:42 PM] Frantic
    [10:48 PM] {lights down; band off again; drum riser rotated another 90 degrees; band back; lights up}
15. [10:49 PM] The Day That Never Comes (random tour footage of the band playing on the screens)
    [10:57 PM] {lights down again; PA playing, no band onstage: WTF? band back, more pyro ☼}
16. [10:59 PM] Spit Out the Bone ☼
    [11:05 PM] {show ends; done? the crowd hollers awhile…}
    [11:11 PM] {band members out to yack one-by one, then group bow in each of the four directions; no encore}

☼ = flames or pyrotechnics blasting onstage, just outside Lars' drum riser

Metallica

• Kirk Hammett: guitar, harmony vox;
• James Hetfield: guitar, vox;
• Robert Trujillo: bass, harmony vox;
• Lars Ulrich: drums, percussion.

So I'm at my desk working on Thursday and Ting hollers across the house, “Hey, you wanna go see Metallica tomorrow?” This is not anything I've been thinking about, so I mumble an answer, but then she pops into the office to explain that her coworker Max was offering a free pair. “Um yeah, sure, it'll be fun!”

Given the multi-leg nature of the public transit trip to Chase, we planned to leave home around 5 PM, but various circumstances caused our schedule to slip here and there, so instead of getting to the venue before the doors opened, we arrive a little after: around 6:40 PM.

It's a mad scene on the west side where the SF Muni streetcar station is tons of people waiting to get in, with lines snaking this way and that like Disneyland, but without the cordoning or any signage to let you know what line was headed where. Ting wanted to buy merch, but the line on the West side ran half-way down the block to the East side of the venue, 2-4 people deep the entire way: nope! We circled further around to the east side, and found another stand on the concourse above the box office with a MUCH shorter line. Wasted ~10-15 min on that errand, then turned south to continue our circle around the venue to the East entrance. The vax check line here was also very long line, but significantly shorter than on the West, where we couldn't even see vax check from the assembled crowd. Waited and shuffled forward slowly; passed vax check, then security, and finally ticket-scanning. Got inside about 7:10 PM, and made it to our seats around 5-10 min later – it's a long climb from the ground floor entrance to the upper level on the opposite side of the venue! Each arm rest in our section has a Metallica 40 wrist band gizmo – looks kinda like a Fitbit – so we put them on. What for? No display screen, no instructions… guess we find out later!

At 7:55 PM the band came out (to a roughly half-full venue) and announced they wouldn't be starting for an hour or so. They left, leaving behind an emcee and a DJ. For the next hour, the emcee ranted about this and that (“who's gonna be moshing?”, “who thinks concert noise limits are a good idea?”, applause contest for favorite Metallica album, who traveled the farthest to get here, etc) and fluffed the crowd (“great signs!”, “props to the crowd from Brazil!” – they had a big GA contingent, maybe 100 people? – etc), while the DJ spun various metal tunes and scratched a little bit.

The show set up was “in the round”, with the stage making a big, mostly empty square in the middle of the floor, leaving about half the arena floor area for GA. Because we were high up (sec 221), I couldn't tell if the four different GA sections were connected or not – there was a big access aisle to the stage at the NE corner of the floor, so you definitely couldn't circle the floor, and the hanging video setup – more screens than Roger Waters? – obscured my view of the far floor (and the SE corner of the stage). Ah well. Having been gifted my seats, I'm not complaining, just setting down my impressions and observations.

By the time the band came on the house was pretty full, but I could still see big swaths of empty seats in multiple sections below us. I'm guessing scalpers bought 'em, then got stuck? Or they were sold to fans overseas who couldn't get here? And the GA floor area never seemed all that full to me – maybe 75% capacity tops? I'm willing to concede that might have been a concession to COVID-19 safety or Fire Marshall regulations. But it seemed weird to look down and see empty space.

The long set was broken up a bunch of times: three breaks of about 3-5 min to rotate the drums (90 deg each time), and a bunch of smaller breaks when the band members would leave the stage and they'd play videos and/or pre-recorded music over the PA. I thought that kinda killed the momentum every time they did it: you finish a raging song, then run off (to do lines or O2 or gargle with salt water or whatever?) instead of continuing to whoop up the crowd? The pyro and the video and lighting were all relatively interesting, but they didn't seem to make good use of the video screens for showing close-up of stage action: there were many times I'd hear something cool, and the videos would be showing random animation, or archival video, or trippy video effects layered over a shot of one of the band members … all sorts of things that didn't help me figure out what I wanted.

At the end of Hit the Lights, we found out that the Metallica 40 bracelets had some sort of wifi controlled LEDs, so at times, the audience was part of the light show. That was pretty cool, except that having a strobing LED on your wrist is really distracting when you're trying to look down past your arm to see the stage. And now that we're not at the show, I don't know if there's any way to repurpose it as something other than a wrist-mounted flashlight…if I can even turn it on (there aren't any obvious external controls)

I'm not a fan enough to know without having read it in other online reviews, but apparently tonight's setlist featured at least one song from each of the band's ten studio albums, performed in chronological order: pretty cool! Ting and I agreed that our favorite was the relatively mellow No Leaf Clover: I guess we're not headbangers.

The sound was OK where I was: typical arena mush cut through by a chest-crushing thump from the bass drum. I had a hard time making out lyrics except when Hetfield sang unaccompanied, and most of the time, the guitar leads were low in the mix rather than riding on top. Overall it wasn't nearly as bad as the mix for Santana at Shoreline in 2019, but having heard fine sound at Chase for the Who and Dead & Company, tonight was a little disappointing in that respect.

It was more than a little disappointing that the band declined to play an encore, but 11 PM end time is roughly in line with the other shows noted above: they can't play all that much later and get people over to BART before last train anyways. Speaking of which, that part of our night worked out great: once it was clear that the show was over, we unpacked and donned our warm layers, packed up our crap, and then joined the happy horde heading out into the night. Got to the Muni pickup area just as a bus was leaving (drat!), but that assured us of getting seats on the next bus in line (yay!), and it only took a few minutes before that bus was filled up and bumping its way over to 16th & Mission BART.

Had to wait about 15 minutes for the next train, but given the reduced schedule BART's been running since the pandemic started, that's not too bad! Had too much post-show energy once we got home, so spent a few hours bouncing around and decompressing from the experience.

Zack Ruskin posted a review with the SF Chronicle.

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2021 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2021 event list! ☸ On to the next event!