Artist: Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold, Alice In Chains

Venue:  Marley park, Ireland

Date: 1 August 2009  

With the sun splitting the stones and a fabulous outdoor venue, you couldn’t have had a better environment for Metallica. This day was originally a full day festival including Thin Lizzy and The Sword in the line up, however both of these band pulled out (for genuine reasons) and they were replaced by Ireland’s own Glyder. Unfortunately due to too many Barcardi Breezers I stupidly missed both Mastodon and Glyder, so I will definitely try and catch both of these bands again before the end of the year.  

Alice in Chains were first to hit the stage after we arrived. Their singer has a powerful voice and certainly does justice to their back catalogue. Although they had a good rapport with the crowd, I think they would have a greater effect in an indoor venue.  

Avenged Sevenfold arrived next. Having seen them last year, I knew to expect an energetic vibrant show, and I wasn’t disappointed. AX7 know how to get the crowd going. Although I didn’t know much of their more recent stuff, I was happy to sit back and listen. They particularly got the place going with their version of Pantera’s ‘Walk’ which was actually sang by a member of the audience!! The fact that M Shadows wore an Irish football Jersey also went down well…..me thinks they may have made a few more Irish supporters at this gig.  

And last but not least, Metallica graced us with their presence again. We are used to seeing them in Ireland each summer now; it is almost like a family tradition. They lads all looked very slick and Lars was surprisingly quiet, which made a nice change!! They played a number of songs that I haven’t heard live in quite some time such as 'Blackened', 'Master of Puppets'. They also did their version of 'Whiskey in the Jar'.

Now, the Irish can be a bit odd about other people singing our songs, however in this case, it went down very well and set the tone for the rest of the show. Along came 'Sad but True', 'One', 'Seek and Destroy', 'Creeping Death', 'Cyanide', 'Turn the Page', 'Killing Time' (sang by Ray Haller from Sweet Savage)……and the list goes on.  The stage was very simple (ie, they didn’t particularly have a set!!), however they did have some pyrotechnics that gave us a blast of heat as the evening got a bit chilly. 

All in all, Metallica gave their usual strong performance to please the crowd.

Review by: Janice

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