Apparently West Aussies like to be “sent off” with rockin’ tunes by the likes of AC/DC and Metallica.
Which begs the question: what would you have playing at your funeral?
I really don’t know what I would pick… can’t say I’ve ever really thought about it. It would have to be something loud and heavy – something way heavier than AC/DC, although something from the Bon Scott era would be cool. Hmmm. Hopefully I have a while yet to ponder.
So what about you?
Image: Metallica when they didn’t suck, circa 1986.
People who know me well may be aware that I have… certain… issues with Metallica.
In summary: As a young goatlady I loved Metallica. I first heard …And Justice For All in early 1990 and loved it (I was just on 13). I then went and discovered Metallica 1983-1989 and was suitably impressed. Then the self-titled (Black) album came out, and while it was no Master Of Puppets it was good music. In hindsight, that album was the beginning of the end.
But then something happened. Metallica cut their hair off and started releasing crap music. Load and Reload are albums of adult contemporary rock which will not be discussed here. The goatlady, now in her early 20’s, felt betrayed by the band she used to adore. They’d softened up, wimped out, cut off their metal hair, sold out. Become not metal. The Napster lawsuit debacle was ridiculous and further highlighted just how far from reality the band had got.
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS6udST6lbE]
YouTube – Metallica Napster Bad
Jason Newsted left the band before his last shred of credibility disappeared. The rest of the band hired a therapist to help them sort out their issues. A freaking therapist. And rather than keep it quiet they made a documentary about it. A freaking documentary!
We won’t even discuss 2003’s St Anger except to mention that the only person I know who likes it is my mother. Sorry Mum.
So now, fast-forward to 2008, and there’s a new album, Death Magnetic. And the first single, The Day That Never Comes, has been released and you can listen to it streaming off Metallica’s official site.
For current and former Metallica fans, this is a big moment. One super-fan that I know had the page open all day Friday but was too scared to click the link in case it sucked. I’m guessing this kind of reaction is common.
So I checked it out. And my review can best be summed up by how I described it to Tuna on Twitter:
first three minutes is drivel… from about 4 min mark until the end is orright
Ah, the clarity that Twitter’s 140 character limit distills.
In summary: Is it better than St Anger? Yes, but that’s not difficult. As Al pointed out, at least that horrible tin-can snare drum sound is gone. Are Metallica going to make it back to their former glory days? Not with this.
Nice try, but could do better: C.
Angry Anderson is joining the list of rockers and other celebs in politics, standing for the Warringah Council elections in New South Wales.
Apparently he has quite a bit of competition and doesn’t expect to make it in. But depending on the bogan population of that area, I’d say he’d have a pretty good chance – hell, I’d vote for him.
Unlike Peter Garrett, I think Angry would be a force to be reckoned with in politics. And yes, that tiny white figure on stage in the photo above is the man himself, at the Bon Scott Celebration Concert (the second one, I believe).
We’re such suckers. We hadn’t even been to Wacken yet and we were planning on coming back for 2010. We hadn’t even been home a week and we were plotting how we were gonna make 2009.
It is, after all, the 20th anniversary.
So it’s decided. I announced it to Twitter and blogged it twice = once over on heapsbad.com and now here – so that’s the final word, people, no turning back. Al is in this time too. Dave even rang his cousin in Poland to tell her we were coming back so now it’s even more official.
Tickets go on sale and the first band announcement is next week (as an aside, I love the way the Wacken news posts always start “Dear Metalheads”). Regardless of what bands are announced, we will be going – the festival experience goes way beyond music.
Once we have our tickets, it will be triple confirmed.
Set in stone.
Orright!
So there’s good news and bad news.
Ticket sales have not been awesome, obviously, because Judas Priest are no longer bringing Cavalera Conspiracy to Australia in support, and are moving in Perth to the smaller Challenge Stadium venue.
Although Cavalera Conspiracy themselves are saying it’s cos they were deemed “inappropriate” I think it’s more likely to be due to poor ticket sales.
I’m not surprised. Iron Maiden couldn’t fill Burswood Dome in Perth, even with Bruce Dickinson’s hilarious pants and a promise of playing nothing that didn’t come out in the 80’s, so who would have thought that Judas Priest, who are not as mainstream and don’t have the hipster T-shirt factor, would be able to? Not any promoter who has done their homework, that’s for sure.
I’m disappointed because I’m a huge Max Cavalera, Soulfly and Sepultura fan and was really excited about seeing the brothers Cavalera. Sad. Maybe they’ll tour on their own. Maybe not.
However, Challenge Stadium is a much better venue – Ticketek describes it as “more intimate” which is a nice way of saying “smaller and not so cavernous, sure to result in a better experience for all the poor suckers who forked out $150 for this” – so it will, um, be a much better experience. For all the poor suckers, like me.
It could be worse, of course… the New Zealand show has been cancelled completely.
Yes, it’s true. We’ve been in the country one week this evening and it’s been all go all the time. *sigh*
I’ve started the long process of processing all my photos – there were 1900 all up, and then I threw away about 300 straight away, and are considering all the others. 45 have made it up to Flickr already… and I’ve made a first update over at the Hellbent blog.
Now, to scam our way back for 2009 – the 20th anniversary of WOA, no less…
Poland:
Slovenia:
Italy:
Germany:
I’m a bad blogger, I know… two weeks on holiday and not a single peep out of me. Rather than make excuses however, or use the The Lazy Bloggers Post Generator, I thought I would summarize the three stages of my holiday so far with some little haiku that I thought up at 4am when I couldn’t sleep last night. So without further ado…
Krakow
charming, lively, old
pierogi and alkohole
zomg! Dave has a bro
Jesenice, Slovenia
mountains and Laško
friends with spiral staircases
mum has mauve hair too
Rome
hot, dirty, crowded
bloody yanks everywhere – but
o-m-g, the food!
Photos and posts when I get back, I promise… internet access has been less than awesome in Italy, and in Slovenia and Poland I was too busy most of the time.
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