Tales of beer and rock 'n roll​

August 9th 2014. Day 1 of  Heavy Montreal.

It was scorching hot on that day and cold beer was very much appreciated… and whoever made the genius call to cool us off with a fire hose few times that day – I still owe you one!

A friend bailed out on me at the last moment so I ended up driving by myself from Toronto. ‘Door to door’ it took me exactly 5 hours. It went by fast because I always have a stack of albums ready for a road trip. I was there on time to take my spot at the front, and before Monster Truck opened the day. Yeah, I’m that tall guy always in front of you at the show… and no, we can’t ever switch spots:)

Anyhow, the cherry on top for that first day of great music was Metallica with their “by request” show, the last on the 25 gig tour that started in March of that year… The gig was great and full of energy, no question about it. However, in my humble opinion, the cherry turned out to be far more bitter than sweet, and the feeling still lingers to this day, at least for me… For those not familiar with it (or it’s just been too long) what it meant for the fans was that anyone who got a hold of a ticket for such a show was given a code that would allow them to vote for individual songs and thus participate in the creation of the set list in its entirety (all but one song (‘The lords of summer’) was to be chosen by the audience). 17 out of 18. All of the songs Metallica has ever recorded were offered for voting. Literally – all of them. Oh boy, did I take the time to contemplate on that and 17 picks that I was going to make.

 I’m sure many others did too. A one time opportunity… And what did the majority of the crowd do? Well of course, all of the greatest hits the band plays all the time anyway were chosen this time as well. Wtf? Seriously guys? What a waste! I’ve picked songs they’ve either never ever played live before and songs I’d love to hear live but either they rarely played them or they’ve stopped playing them long time ago… To name a few, I picked songs like Fixxxer, Trapped under ice, Escape, Ain’t my bitch, Wasting my hate, Prince charming, Jump in the fire, Dyers eve etc. I mean, forget about Metallica, we all have our own personal favourites when it comes to songs by any given artist. Yes, majority of people will like the greatest hits, and that’s totally fine, but there’s always quite a few other songs we love and every time you go to see a show you’re secretly hoping that at least one of those will get played. And here it was possible to pick and choose. Not one song, but all of them. It was also a well known fact that they were in the making of the new album (Hardwired…). That meant there was a tour coming, which in turn meant there’s gonna be plenty of shows with their greatest hits…

So yeah, a really great day and overall a fond memory that I’ll die believing could’ve been even better. Oh well, maybe some other time…