After the rain, a sound deluge on Metallica's second night at Gillette Stadium

FOXBOROUGH ― Despite a soggy start, the rust-free Metallica were at full nuclear-strike capability Sunday night for the second, and arguably better, of two shows this weekend at Gillette Stadium.

However, for a band who put out an album called “Ride the Lightning” 40 years ago, Metallica started the evening taking a backseat to Mother Nature.

With the announcement that there was lightning in the area, the second night of Metallica’s “No Repeat Weekend” was pushed back around 90 minutes past the 6 p.m. start time.

Due to the two-hour delay, Five Finger Death Punch played an aggressive but abbreviated 30-minute, eight-song set, while Ice Nine Kills from Scituate was scrapped altogether. But, alas, nothing was going to rain on Metallica’s parade. And, when they hit the stage for their killer, two-hour, 15-song set, Metallica played like they were an unbridled force of nature.

Initially wearing a black Metallica football jersey that was available (and quickly sold out) in the popup merch store, James Hetfield, who turned 61 on Saturday, showed no signs of age. As a singer and a guitarist, Hetfield still has plenty of teeth, talons and toughness, while the unstoppable Lars Ulrich sounded like he was pounding his drumkit into a bloody pulp.

While the one-two punch of Hetfield and Ulrich would be enough to make any rock band legendary, Rob Trujillo's bass playing and Kirk Hammett’s snarling, staccato guitar solos are also important ingredients in Metallica being the undisputed masters of metal.

Like two nights earlier on Friday at Gillette, Metallica kicked off its unrelenting, heavy metal onslaught with a trio of old school thrash metal tunes. This time around it was “Whiplash” from 1983’s “Kill ‘Em All”; “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” from 1984’s “Ride the Lightning,”; and then the title track from that same album.

After a pair of mosh pit-friendly bangers from the band’s latest album, “72 Seasons” (‘Lux ?terna’ and ‘Screaming Suicide”), something happened that I never thought I would see – Metallica covering Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” With the aid of the lyrics resting on a music stand, Trujillo playfully belted out the tune while he and Hammett noodled on their respective instruments.

Talk about playing to Bay State crowd.

Trujillo and Hammett also teased the audience with the opening riffs of The Standells’ “Dirty Water,” a shameless ploy to win over the audience that Bruce Springsteen usually does when he plays in these parts.

From there, it was back to take-no-prisoners with the crowd-pleasing arena rock anthem “Wherever I May Roam,” a song that makes wanderlust sound like one of the seven deadly sins and sounds 100 times better in the open air than it does on earphones.

Later in the evening the band paid tribute to celebrated author H.P. Lovecraft on “The Call of Ktulu.” Not only was it a killer, old school thrash metal instrumental, it was also the perfect track to pay respect to the band’s original bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a tour bus accident in 1986.

Hetfield sounded like he was conjuring up a demon from hell while wailing on a guitar which had the face of the tentacle-bearded creature that’s in the song’s title.

In addition to Hetfield delivering some of his best vocals of the night, the mammoth-sized power ballad “The Unforgiven” was a dynamite showcase for Hetfield the guitarist. Shifting from a stationary acoustic guitar propped on a pole to a strapped-on electric guitar on his person, Hetfield gave the song some serious heft in what is Metallica’s best stab at setting a spaghetti western to music.

With the sounds of machine gun fire and plane dropping bombs, “One” transformed the stage into a sonic battlefield. And when the band unleashed its arsenal, it was all-out war. One of the bleakest songs ever recorded by a multi-platinum artist, it was also the best number of the night.

Metallica ended the mother of all summer concerts that, for a moment there, looked like it was going to be complete washout, with the nightmarish, twisted metal tune "Enter Sandman," a song that gets better every time you hear it.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Review: Metallica's second night at Gillette Stadium a deluge of sound