In the old days, after a fierce headbanging song like “Fight Fire With Fire,” Metallica would have left no room for release. The subsequent songs would have been faster, louder, more menacing, designed to steal every remaining bit of energy from the crowd.
Instead, Sunday night at the Winnebago County Fairgrounds in Pecatonica, Ill., the band took its encore break and returned to the stage–with acoustic guitars, sitting on stools. “Do you feel like clapping your hands for us?” shouted affable bassist Jason Newsted. The band made jokes about Johnny Cash and sarcastically played the beginning of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”
Hold it. Clapalongs? “Stairway to Heaven”? Jokes? Acoustic guitars? For the first few seconds of a three-song acoustic suite, which began with a countryish version of 1997’s “Low Man’s Lyric,” Metallica seemed to be mocking “MTV Unplugged.” Or maybe itself.
But singer James Hetfield, who usually growls like the bogeyman kids envision in their closets, is the single component that stands between Metallica and self-parody. Originally a growler who styled himself after Motorhead’s rasping Lemmy Kilmister, Hetfield has slowly become more versatile. His soulful moan made “Low Man’s Lyric” resemble the sweet-and-sour sound of Nirvana’s devastating swan song “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” rather than an incongruous approximation of old-time country twang.
Metallica has matured. By the end of the year, all four members will be 35, and it’s tough to keep the 120-decibel jackhammer running constantly into middle age. So with humble disclaimers–“That felt good, man, hope you liked it,” one of them said after the soft set–Metallica ventured gingerly into the world of acoustic music.
The band will never stop wearing black, though, and early speed-metal classics like “One” and “Creeping Death”–the “die”-chanting crowd-pleaser that closed the show–fit nicely among the more bluesy melodies of 1991’s “Wherever I May Roam” and “Enter Sandman.” On some songs, Metallica uses both new and old styles to great effect: “Sad But True” stops and starts with impeccable thrash precision, and also lets up for a catchy singalong chorus.
Sometimes the experimenting went too far. At one point, Newsted and guitarist Kirk Hammett spent several precious minutes on stadium-rock cliches, soloing pointlessly while the rest of the band took a break. But they quickly restored the momentum with “Nothing Else Matters.”
As with the Metallica-headlining Lollapalooza show two summers ago, the Rockford-area fairground’s logistics made life difficult for drivers from Chicago. It usually takes about two hours to get to tiny Pecatonica from the city, but the caravan of Metallica fans came to an abrupt halt about 12 miles from the entrance. Metallica may be maturing, but it’s not necessarily making things easier on its fans.
