WERCHTER BOUTIQUE: Metallica - Soundgarden - Mastodon - Channel Zero - Gojira - Ghost: Werchter, Belgium may 28th 2012. We arrived a bit late, so we missed out on Ghost but made it up to the front for most of the Gojira set, which was quite fresh and heavy! Followed by the local Belgian heroes Channel Zero which got the crowd moving a bit, I saw at least one Mosh-Pit that looked right! But Channel Zero is not entirely my cup of tea, so that was not for me.
Mastodon pulled of a very solid, rhythmic, and heavy set, but was largely underappreciated by the crowd, who sadly seemed to be focused solemnly on seeing Metallica, and thus ignored some great and heavy music!
Soundgarden, was a risky move on the bookers side, but one that I for one massively appreciated! And Soundgarden thanked their few fans in the crowd with a really cool setlist that you would not expect as such at a festival show. It was not a best of show, but it was a kick your ass show! They focused on their older albums, which was gnarly, but the crowd, unfortunately did not know what happened to them, and confirmed that they wanted only Metallica, which is sad, looking at the great musicians on stage being ignored by people that for the most part can’t even play an instrument. All I can say is respect to Soundgarden, as my friend B. put it, not only are they heavy, but they also sound good!
Here is a link to the setlist: https://www.facebook.com/
Metallica started their show with a clip from an old Western, which was a nice intro! They started of their set with ‘Hit the Lights’, and ‘master of puppets’. ‘Ride the lightning’ and ‘for whom the bell tolls’, followed by the newer ‘hell and back’. Then Metallica left the stage, to start a short video with a few facts and figures about the ‘Black Album’, and they opened the show with the last track from the album ‘the struggle within’, and proceeded to play the entire album backwards. Fortunately people got a bit loose with Metallica being on stage, but even though the Black Album as well as Metallica’s performance were still as good as on the “where we may roam” tour in 1993, the crowd has lost just about all of its’ power, its’ rage, its’ readiness to rock! We got a small moshpit going a few times, but there were but a few people joining us. Long gone are the days where there were 4 or 5 different pits at a single show, at the same time, nowadays, you’re lucky if you have 1 or 2 small pits in a crowd of 70’000 people.. Metallica are pros, and they worked the crowed well, getting them to sing here and there, but the crowd was overall relatively lame (at least those in the black circle). My personal highlights were ‘Of wolf and man’ as well as ‘sad but true’ . They ended the show with an all hit encore: ‘Battery’, ‘One’ and ‘Seek and Destroy’. Overall for me still a very satisfying experience, and a great show, but I do miss the madness from the older days.
Here is a link for the setlist, as well as some pictures from Metallica:
http://www.metallica.com/tour/