With the Gods of Metal.. Metallica - India Concert 2011 Experience

Oct 30^th 2011: A day which will go down in history. The first ever F1 race & the first Metallica concert (after waiting 30 years) in India. Ever. And I was there to see the Gods of Metal play. Indeed!! J How was it? Well, here is how it was:

Before briefing on the concert, we have to go back a few months….

It was April 2011, when one of my colleagues told me about the upcoming Metallica concert in Bangalore. Was I excited? Hell yeah, I was. The bookings were open and we were among the few first comers, who on the very first day of the announcements booked the tickets. As it turned out, it didn’t matter much as the tickets were on sale even a day before the concert.

I started listening to Metallica in 2009. The songs which got me going were Unforgiven and Turn the Page. Not that the rest didn’t impress me, it was just that it took time to get into their Lyrics J After which there are so many tracks that I keep listening to.

After getting into them big time, I read about the band’s history and was shocked to know that they started playing from 1981 and created a revolution in the world of music. I wasn’t even born then. There are lot more interesting facts about them which I will not put it here (there is wikipedia always)

So that’s about it on the flashback, let’s get back to present….

It was about 12 noon when we started off from home after reading news here & there to make sure the Delhi tragedy did not affect the Bangalore concert. We were glad it didn’t J It was on and we were off to get high J We reached the venue by 4:30 and whoa… around 22k metal heads (almost everyone was in Black Metallica/other band T’s and blue denims) were there. Few drunk, few with family, few with gfs, few with banners, few with broken legs/hands (doesn’t matter when Metallica is playing) and ONE guy with “Being Human” Tshirt. Seriously? Looser. Anyways this is how we were dressed for the occasion:

We got in through the heavy rush and the first thing we did was – rush to the loo.

Since it was my first concert, I didn’t have any specifics in mind; but I'd just love to experience the Gods playing. We acquired a perfect spot to enjoy the show. Near a barricade. Got on that and had a great view of the stage (though our ass was on fire – clotted & paining like hell). The pain didn’t matter when Metallica came on @ 8PM and played on and on for 2.5 hours. What energy. What performance. They rocked. No one stood still during that time. They played 16 songs and 3 at the end when the crowd was not ready to let them go J Obviously. You made us wait for 30 years. You gotta give us more. And they did. And the crowd chanted along. All 22k people chanting “la la la la la la la la la” along with James Hetfield.

Anyone who has seen them do this should write about it and treasure the time; you will want to have something to look back on, that you can simply read to bring you back to every moment of the experience! And here are some visuals to aid it:

It was done by 10.30PM and took us almost an hour to get out along the 22k people and another hour to find an auto and another hour to get dinner parcelled (from the only place which is open at midnight – paramount). It was around 2AM when we reached home. The only energy left in us was to eat & hit the bed. EOD. EODCT. (End of Day. End of a Dream come True) ...