Review: METALLICA Played With Energy To Spare At Tour Kick-Off

March 3, 2004

Michael Senft of The Arizona Republic has reviewed METALLICA's U.S. tour-opening performance at America West Arena in Phoenix Tuesday night (March 2).

"Conspicuously scarce [in the group's set] were tracks from the quartet's new album, 'St. Anger'," he wrote. "Perhaps the band realizes that its newer material does not measure up to past efforts, because only two tracks were played, the title track and 'Frantic'. Indeed, much of the band's '90s output was ignored as well, with only 'King Nothing' from 1996's 'Load' and . . . 'Fuel' from '97's 'Re-Load' representing that time period.

"While METALLICA played with energy to spare, the terrible acoustics of AWA swallowed most of the trademark precision of guitarist Kirk Hammett. Trujillo's bass and Hetfield's rhythm guitar were often just a murky sludge, but thanfully the vocals did not suffer. Also, the quartet occasionally seemed slightly out of sync, perhaps because of the enormity of the stage and the fact that drummer Lars Ulrich's set was on the outer ring of the rotating stage." [Read more]

METALLICA setlist for March 2, 2004 at America West Arena in Phoenix, Arizona:

01. Blackened
02. Fuel
03. Harvester of Sorrow
04. Sanitarium
05. For Whom the Bell Tolls (Bass solo)
06. Frantic
07. King Nothing
08. Holier than Thou
09. Sad But True
10. Creeping Death
11. Battery
Encore 1:
12. St. Anger
13. Nothing Else Matters
14. Master of Puppets
Encore 2:
15. One
16. Enter Sandman
Encore 3:
17. Breadfan
18. Hit the Lights

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