Enter Night_ A Biography of Metallica - Mick Wall [181]
There was even room for a certain reflection, the show beginning each night with a twenty-minute video documentary depicting the band’s history, dedicated specifically to Cliff Burton. Now firmly part of the Metallica mythology, the biggest cheer of the night would be for that moment when Cliff’s image appeared: wayward hair, windmilling arm, permanently clad in cardigan and bell-bottoms the way Jesus would always be in white robes. A great moment for everyone, with the possible exception of Jason, who always paid lip-service to the Cliff Burton legend but must surely have grown sick of the constant reminder that he was only there through luck, and bad luck at that. The spell was only broken when James would turn to the crowd and admonish them, ‘You all got the Black Album, right? Studied all your lyrics and shit? No fuck-ups now. Hey, any time this stuff gets too heavy for you…’ A moment’s pause while the crowd jeered and James fixed a jester’s crooked smile to his lips…‘Tough shit!’ There were occasional nods to the past – ‘Creeping Death’, ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, ‘Master of Puppets’, all played at such excoriating speed it was as though they wanted to get them out of the way as quickly as possible, ending each night with an extended, cataclysmic version of ‘One’ guaranteed to bring the house down, before an encore of ‘Battery’, delivered at even more pummelling speed. This was street rock as spectacle, the best money could buy, and that said everything about the new, all-singing, all-dancing, Nineties-version of Metallica that had eluded the original finger-pointing, chest-thumping, weirdly straight-laced Eighties version. Whatever was in the minds of Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield it was clear to the outsider that this was no longer about back-room, garage-roots authenticity but total devotion, all-out war, world domination. It was about being number fucking one, you fuckers…
Now firmly part of the establishment, in February 1992 Metallica picked up another Grammy, their third in a row, this time for ‘Enter Sandman’, which won the ‘Best Metal Performance with Vocals’ award. ‘We gotta thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year,’ quipped Lars, all of the Shrine Auditorium yucking it up with him. Behind the laughter, though, was now steely-eyed intent. ‘We worked so fucking hard on this album,’ said James afterwards, ‘so the fact that we won a Grammy for it this time actually meant something. All the other ones, I don’t know what to do with ’em, really.’ What about Lars, though – did it make him feel proud? I asked. ‘Of course I like winning a Grammy!’ he smiled, not the least bit sheepishly. ‘I want a Grammy as much as the next guy; even more than the next guy.’ He sat up straight in his chair. ‘I’m just sitting here thinking nobody has asked me if I’m proud of it before. Come to think of it, I’m really fucking proud, I really am! I used to always think it didn’t mean much, you know? But the truth is I guess it does…’
In April that year, Metallica confirmed its newly won place at rock’s top table when the band appeared in London at the Concert for Life tribute show to the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, staged at Wembley Stadium. They performed three songs, all from the new mainstream-approved album: ‘Enter Sandman’, ‘Sad but True’ and ‘Nothing Else Matters’. (All three songs were released as a special commemorative single the following week, with all proceeds from its sale donated to the Freddie Mercury AIDS fund.) Hetfield also sang ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ with the three surviving members of Queen, plus guitarist Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath.
Then in May, Lars and Slash co-hosted a special press conference at The Gaslight in Hollywood, where it was announced that Guns N’ Roses and Metallica would co-headline a US tour