Whenever a huge metal festival happens, people would start worrying about things. People would worry about deaths, fighting in the audience or worse concert riots. Thankfully none of that happened at Metallica’s “Orion Fest + More”. The Fest was clearly about the music. All the fans there were there to see Metallica, but some of the Metallica fans did stick around to check out the other bands on the Festival though. I didn’t see any of the bands on the Festival except I did caught Lucero, yesterday, which I actually liked them.

Tonight’s Metallica set, they played the Black Album in it’s entirety. This time, they played right through the full album, song after song. Metallica still proves that they can do speed metal and they can still do it well. People are upset with them because they went alternative rock in the early 2000’s. Changing their genre completely. You see, I still like their alternative rock “St. Anger/Load/Reload” sound ’cause I admired the band wanting to move away from speed metal to do something different. Bands change and evolve. I like that.

The reason Metallica went back to speed metal at Orion fest ’cause it was a tribute to Cliff Burton. It’s what Cliff would have wanted, so they gave it to him. At the end of tonight’s set, there was a fan out in the audience holding up a very large poster of Cliff Burton, so Lars, walks out to the stage ramp to get a closer look at it, which was a pretty heartbreaking and sad moment. Metallica still loves Cliff, even to this day. The festival was all about Cliff really. I’m sure Cliff would have loved the festival himself if he was still alive today.

While Metallica killed it again tonight, I wish they would change up their ending to their sets. They keep playing the same encore songs, ending it with “Seek and Destroy” every concert. “Seek and Destroy”, is an amazing song, but it doesn’t always have to be the end song of a concert. Change it up some, boys! Metallica really are great live performers. They don’t fake anything with their playing. James doesn’t lip sync, he can really sing. I can tell ’cause they play the same songs differently each night. Different tempo, different feeling. Sometimes better than the night before.

The question we all have to ask is, what is their next new album is going to sound like? The follow up to “Death Magnetic”? Will, they finally redeem themselves and go back to speed metal like the fans wanted? While “Death Magnetic” was mostly speed metal, they still had quite a few songs on the record that were still, “Load/Reload” sounding. I’m hoping they’ll go back to thrash for their next album, but I doubt it. That’s the tough part about songwriting. You just play whatever comes out of you, doesn’t matter the genre. That’s one thing that fans don’t understand about music and songwriting. Your mind is like a radio, ya know? A songwriter hears original songs in his/her head all the time, and musicians write the songs to get it out of them. I’m sure fans want to see them go back to the genre they are known for but it’s all about the songwriting inspiration. Sometimes they can’t help writing out of the speed metal genre. That’s what being an artist is all about. And that’s another reason why I respect Metallica.

Kev