Last week, my son graduated with high honors from high school. As a graduation gift to him, I bought us tickets to Metallica's WorldWired Tour stop here in town. He had never been to a high-energy rock concert, let alone one in a stadium, and I knew he was looking forward to it as much as I was.
We got there during Avenged Sevenfold, the warm-up band's set. We had nosebleed seats on the other side of the stadium and Tom wanted to say hi to his friends who were also there. After texting a bit, we managed to find them, and had no problem walking down to their seats to say Hi and hang out for the openers.
Avenged finished their set as the sun was dropping behind the mountains, and while the roadies were setting up for Metallica, DJ Mixmaster Mike from the Beastie Boys was onstage spinning tracks for the swelling crowd. He started off with Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name" and I was getting more excited the closer we got to the show.
Nobody came to check our tickets, so we decided to stick around the section as long as we could. These seats were three rows off the field and much better than the ones we bought. Plus, Tom got to hang with his friends while I stood with their dads.
Darkness fell and Metallica took the stage, cranking out a couple songs from the new album that I wasn't too familiar with. The sound levels were deafening, and my right eardrum went nearly deaf almost immediately. I didn't care though, the music was awesome and the energy of the crowd was frenetic.
I looked over to see my normally conservative son throwing up the horns and thrashing his head back and forth to the music. It gave me a huge grin to see him enjoying himself.
After a few songs, thunderstorms rolled in and the show was paused for a lightning delay. We stood around inside the stadium, munching on snacks and talking for about 30 minutes until the all clear was signaled and we returned to our seats. Again, with no verification of our tickets. In fact, people were coming down our row and jumping the wall to get down onto the field, and nobody seemed to care.
Naturally, Metallica kicked the second half off with "Ride the Lightning", clearly understanding it was the most appropriate song to play.
As the show continued, they played all their greatest hits, and the crowd of 60,000 fans was singing along with them. My throat was getting hoarse from shouting out lyrics and my neck was getting whiplash from all the headbanging. It was awesome.
I looked over at my son who was clearly having a blast, as fireworks went off, lasers beamed across the crowd, lights flashed in time to the beat, and flames so big we could feel the heat 80 yards away burst up into the air. For some, it would have been total sensory overload. We, on the other hand, were having a total blast.
The boys were banging, the dads were bumping, and Tom gave me the most enthusiastic high five I've ever felt from him - nearly breaking my hand! Clearly he was having a blast. :)
Metallica closed the show with the classic "Enter Sandman", from the Black album. One of our many favorites. As they left the stage and the lights came up, I hugged my grinning son. "Have you ever experienced anything like this before?" I asked. "No", he replied. I then asked him, "Great concert? Or the GREATEST concert?" He hugged me tighter and said "The GREATEST!"
Not only was the show super high energy and totally amazing, but my son got to share the event with two of his best friends. I got to give him a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and best of all, to share it with him.
GREATEST. SHOW. EVER.
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