Concert review: Metallica at full metal throttle in Gillette Stadium

FOXBOROUGH — Taking their full-throttle, take-no-prisoners M72 World Tour to the gridiron, Metallica hit Gillette Stadium Friday night for the first of two concerts of its “No Repeat Weekend,” featuring two completely different set lists and two completely different support lineups.

Performing in the round, Metallica embarked on the stage like conquering marauders coming home from a successful war campaign and sharing the spoils.

Metallica performed a two-hour, 15-song set, which started explosively, ended explosively and, heck, everything in between was as explosive as dynamite. For the crowd of an estimated 62,000, the concert was a fist-pumping, head-banging, high-adrenaline metal workout.

With eight towers topped with LED video screen cylinders reaching out to the open sky that was threatening most of the night but in the end played nice, Metallica performed on a ready-made concentric ring from hell while fans huddled together in the center of the stage dubbed the “snake pit.” Hieronymus Bosch couldn’t have staged a better concert.

With its unrelenting thrash metal assaults, the show wasn't for the weak of heart. James Hetfield spat out venomous vocals as he traded off and shared bone-crunching, speed metal guitar onslaughts with longhaired guitarist Kirk Hammett and pigtailed bassist Rob Trujillo, alongside the ferocious, pummeling drumbeats of Lars Ulrich, who wore a black baseball cap backwards and appeared to be drenched in a pool of sweat from the get-go.

With an arsenal of microphone stands strategically placed all over the stage oval, which was also equipped with four pop-up drum risers, Metallica made sure every section of the stadium had some quality face time with the band.

Metallica kicked off the metal maelstrom with a trio of unflinching, old-school thrash metal opuses, “Creeping Death” from 1984’s “Ride the Lightning,” “Harvester of Sorrow from 1988’s “…And Justice for All” and “Leper Messiah” from 1986’s “Master of Puppets.”

Spitting out lines from “The Ten Commandments” by Charlton Heston’s Moses and Yul Brynner’s Pharaoh, Hetfield led the crowd into the fist-pumping, head-banging chant of “Die! Die! Die!” during “Creeping Death,” while Ulrich unmercifully pummeled the skins with a ferocity to flatten everything in path.

With raging tracks like these, Metallica rarely gave the audience a chance to breathe.

Three-fourths of Metallica were wearing the prerequisite black, while Hammett wore a flashy dungaree jacket with painted images of girls and horses, some of them with wings (the horses not the girls). Then again, what do you expect from a musician whose first of many guitars of the evening had a painting of Boris Karloff as “The Mummy” on it?

Saying how grateful they are to be in Boston (not Foxborough), Hetfield said, “We’re here to have a good time” and from the crowd reaction, they were too.

Showing that it’s good to be king, even if you wear the crown of “King Nothing,” Hammett shredded his guitar for the dubious coronation of sorts, while a threatening, throat-shredding Hetfield got his royal subjects in line and clapping in unison.

The short-cropped, silver-haired Hetfield, who turned 61 on Saturday, seemed a little discouraged by the crowd’s chilly reception for new material off last year’s “72 Seasons,” which included the title track, “If Darkness Had a Son” and “Shadows Follow.” While unfamiliarity with the tunes most likely played in the crowd’s initial response, these powerhouse numbers have might and the mettle it takes to find a place in Metallica’s repertoire.

Hammett and Trujillo joined forces for a mini-jam session that they dubbed “Foxborough on the Run.” While it was harmless fun, it’s a safe bet that this was the first and last time they will ever play this silly ditty in front of an audience.

Despite Hetfield performing while reclining on a chair, nothing was relaxing about the domestic-abuse ditty “The Day That Never Comes.” Once again wrestling with father issues and being haunted by real-life monsters, Hetfield warmly crooned the song’s disturbing lyrics and unflinchingly snarled the unnerving chorus. As the song's combustible, claustrophobic mix built and eventually blew up, the audience’s senses were sonically bombarded by a symbolic representation of being bruised and battered and the lingering aftereffects.

The “Master of Puppets” instrumental “Orion” served as the perfect tribute to Metallica’s original bassist, Cliff Burton, whose life was cut short by a tour bus accident in 1986. Here, Trujillo, who joined Metallica in 2003, took center stage to show off his chops before the number turned into a trippy jam.

Back-to-back tracks from Metallica’s 1991’s self-titled commercial breakthrough “Black Album” served as the most accessible and melodic part of the evening.  While the tough-guy lament “Nothing Else Matters” showcased Hetfield’s quieter, more vulnerable side, “Sad But True” featured the whole band rocking with reckless abandon.

After quizzing the audience on how many of them were seeing Metallica for the first time, Hetfield welcomed them into the fold, adding, “Once you’re in the Metallica family, you can never leave.” Metallica then set the stage ablaze literally with the high-octane rocker "Fuel," which was enough to singe one’s eyebrows with its scorching riffs and fire-breathing pyrotechnics.

Although he referred to both the stadium as being in and the crowd being from Boston repeatedly throughout the night, Hetfield, a big Las Vegas Raiders fans, said, prior to two dozen black and yellow “M72 Metallic” beach balls being dropped from the towers, that in honor of Gillette, they were gonna deflate them all a little bit. Ouch!

Before anyone thought this was a continuation of “The Roast of Tom Brady,” Metallica broke into the thrash-metal classic “Seek & Destroy” from 1983’s “Kill ‘Em All,” which still lives up to its name with its straight-for-the-jugular delivery and shout-along chorus. And with all the inflatables bouncing on the stage and the G.A. snake pit, “Seek and Destroy” turned into Beach Blanket Blitzkrieg, with the only missing being Frankie and Annette.

By the time the evening’s closer “Master of Puppets” finished, it was clear that Metallica is still the undisputed master of metal.

With his menacing growl, Hetfield sounded as if he was calling the hounds of hell or the band's heavy metal naysayers. Hetfield commanded the audience to “Obey your master! Master!” and they eagerly obliged, with fists pumping into the air.

Profusely thanking the Bay State audience at their first show back in the States, a beaming Hetfield flung guitar picks to concertgoers, while a giddy Hammett and Trujillo walked around with keg party cups filled with picks and passed them out.

A drumstick-passing Ulrich, who found a live mike before the power was cut, reminiscenced about how in 1983 Metallica came to Boston for the first time and ended up playing two shows at the now-defunct “Rat” (properly known as The Rathskeller) and — look at them now, 41 years later they’re playing two big, back-to-back shows at Gillette Stadium, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Night two of no-repeat Metallica is Sunday. And, looking at the set list for Friday, there’s still plenty of head-banging classics and crowd-pleasers yet to be played on this go-around at Gillette.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Concert review: Metallica at full metal throttle in Gillette Stadium