Metallica – King Nothing

This is a live performance by the American heavy metal band Metallica playing the song “King Nothing” live. The performance is from 1996 from the British TV show “Later with Jools Holland”.
The song was originally released on the band’s 1996 album “Load”. The song is credited to: James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammett. All guitars were tuned down one half step to Eb.
The song was released as a single in 1997 and a music video was shot for it as well. It peaked at #90 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
It’s a good song and a good performance by the band.

Enjoy ; )

Metallica - Am I Evil?

This is a live performance by American heavy metal and thrash band Metallica playing the song "Am I Evil?". The performance is from 1998 in New York.
The song was originally recorded by the British heavy metal band Diamondhead. It was written by Sean Harris (singer) and Brian Tatler (guitarist). It was originally released on Diamondhead's debut album "Lightning to the Nations" in 1980.
Metallica who were big fans of Diamondhead would play this and many other Diamondhead songs at the beginning of them playing together. The most widely available version by Metallica is on their 1998 "Garage Inc." double album which consists solely of covers. Diamondhead has said in interviews that they are flattered by the cover done by Metallica and that the royalties from the song have been beneficial for the band's continued recording and touring career.
It's a great and heavy song, and a great performance by Metallica.

Lou Reed & Metallica - Sweet Jane

This is a live performance from the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame concerts that were held in New York City. The performance is from 2009 and features Lou Reed and Metallica together on stage performing the classic "Velvet Underground" song "Sweet Jane".
The song originally appeared on Velvet Underground's 1970 album "Loaded". The song was written by the band's leader Lou Reed who also continued playing the song throughout his later solo career. Throughout the course of the song it's been performed in two different keys: D & E. This particular performance is in D.

On another note. It has recently been revealed that Metallica has teamed up with Lou Reed for their next album release. In fact these recording sessions have spawned a 10 track album that has yet to get an official release date. That is, we don't even know how it's going to be released as neither Metallica nor Lou Reed is currently under any recording contract. I personally think this is a great piece of news and can't wait to hear it. Others probably won't agree with me on that, but how the fuck can you hate on something before having listened to it. I mean really!! Just read a couple of the comments for the video and you'll see how stupid it is, I mean hating on something before you've even heard it, come on man!!

A picture of Metallica frontman James Hetfield with Lou Reed (sitting down in the picture)
A good song with a good little piece of news.

Enjoy ; )

Metallica – Enter Sandman

This is a live performance by American heavy metal band Metallica playing their infamous song “Enter Sandman”. The performance is from the British TV-show “Later with Jools Holland”.
The song is off Metallica’s 1991 album “Metallica”. It was released as the first single from the album the same year and in that way it started off several years of success and touring with this album.
The song is credited to Kirk Hammett, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. It is perhaps the most well known Metallica song ever and it has appeared on every Metallica live album and DVD since 1991.
The main guitar riff was suggested by Kirk Hammett and then slightly altered by Hetfield. It was one of the last songs on the album to have lyrics and the original lyrics were actually much darker and about crib death. Producer Bob Rock and Lars Ulrich asked Hetfield to try and write better lyrics for the song and thus he came up with the lyrics that ended up on the album.
It’s a great song and probably Metallica’s best crowd pleaser at gigs.

Enjoy ;-)

Black Sabbath - Iron Man

This is a live performance by British heavy metal band Black Sabbath playing perhaps their most famous song, or one of them at least, "Iron Man". The performance is from Paris 1970.
The song is of their "Paranoid" album which was also released in 1970. The song has since its release been featured in various TV-shows, been sampled by numerous hip-hop acts and covered by a large number of artists.
The song's title is courtesy of Ozzy Osbourne, but the lyrics were written by Geezer Butler around Ozzy's title. Originally it was named "Iron Bloke", but this was just a working title alas it was changed before the song's release.
The song is about a man who travels back in time and sees the apocalypse. When he returns to the present he is turned in two an iron man and proceeds to communicate with people around him. His attempts are ignored and mocked and so he gets angry and causes the very destruction he saw in the future.
As mentioned earlier the song has been covered by a large number of artists. Anything from Metallica to Sir Mix-A-Lot. It was also recently confirmed that William Shatner with the aid of Ozzy's former guitarist Zakk Wylde. Below is a short clip showing them working on it in the studio.

I think this is very funny and really shows the cult status the song has reached.
It's a very good performance of a truly iconic song. The audio isn't the best in the world, but still all right and a pretty good descent video quality for 1970.

Enjoy ; )

Metallica - Nothing Else Matters

This is a live performance by metal band Metallica playing their ballad "Nothing Else Matters" live. This performance is from the 1999 S&M concert which is available on both CD and DVD. It's a great concert featuring Michael Kamen conducting the San Francisco symphony orchestra playing live with Metallica in concert.
The song was released as a single in 1992 and it originally appeared on the band's 1991 album entitled "Metallica" aka. "The Black Album".
The song is credited to James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. Hetfield came up with the beginning of the song as he was plucking the four open strings of an Em chord while on the phone with his girlfriend. Originally Hetfield didn't want the song to be on the album, but after hearing it Lars convinced Hetfield to put it on the album. It is also one of the few tracks where Hetfield plays lead guitar. And on the original album version Hetfield recorded all of the guitar tracks on the song. So Hammett isn't even playing on this track.
The original album version was also scored by Michael Kamen. The band tuned down his scoring a lot, but a version with acoustic guitars, Hetfield's vocal track and the original composed piece by Kamen exists and is known as "The Elevator Version". Kamen orchestrated a lot of Metallica songs (including this one) for the S&M concert in San Francisco.
It's a really good song and a really good ballad for Metallica that seems to strike something in people when they listen to it. A really good track.

Enjoy ; )

Metallica - Mama Said

The top video is of James Hetfield performing an acoustic version of this song of the band's album "Load". It's a genre bending tune that strays a lot from Metallica's other songs. It starts off with an acoustic guitar, and the towards the chorus goes into a country inspired piece, with the whole thing sort of peaks, and power chords played on a distorted electric guitar plays through the last part of the song. I think it's a really good song, and it really sounds great in the studio version, a well mixed song that mixes genres. The video below is the music video for the song, so you can hear the studio version of the song as well.

The lyrics are written by Hetfield, and they are about a boy struggling to find his own way in life without his mother. This draws on Hetfield's own relationship to his mother who died of cancer.
The song has never really been part of Metallica's live set, probably because it strays so much from Metallica's traditional metal sound. Hetfield has played it alone with no accompaniment, and has also played with country singer Jessi Colter. But we'll probably never get the band playing the song live as it was recorded. It's sort of James' song which is also shown in the fact that the other band members only make a brief and excluded cameo in the music video for the song.
Still a very good song.


Enjoy ; )

Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way

This is a performance Lenny Kravitz and his band at the 2007 Live Earth concert. They perform the classic song "Are You Gonna Go My Way", a song by Kravitz released in 1993 as a single. It's a great straight forward rock 'n' roll song driven by an awesome riff that just drives the song. This shows that Kravitz is a true rock artist who knows his stuff and can write great rock 'n' roll songs. The song has become hugely successful and popular, and has been covered by several artists, such as; Metallica, Tom Jones and Robbie Williams to name a few.
It's a great performance from Live Earth, they really give all they have, and deliver a solid performance of a kick-ass song.
The single also spawned one of the best performance music videos ever. I'm not a big fan of that kind of music videos, but this is just done so well, I have to salute it. It basically takes place in a vertical room with lights in the sealing blinking in various patterns through out the performance. Lenny plays a Gibson Flying V and looks cool, and so does the rest of the band. That's the thing about this music video, they all look cool. There's also some great shots of fans jumping around going wild. It's a great video, and by many considered a land mark of 90's music videos. The music video is embeded beneath.

Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way
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Train Kept A-Rollin' (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2009)

This is an all star performance from the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was the ending act of the night, and it got all of the nominees, winners and presenters on stage for an all star jam on this classic song. The performance features: all members of Metallica (including their earlier bassist Jason Newsted), Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Joe Perry, Flea and Ronnie Wood. The inductees of the evening were Metallica and Jeff Beck. It's a great performance, and you can just tell that they're all having a lot of fun with it.
The only drag, and I'm nitpicking now, is the fact that Jimmy Page doesn't get to do a solo, I mean, he's bad ass, so why not give him a solo. I think I know why, Beck, Kirk Hammet and Joe Perry all get to do a solo. Beck and Hammet were part of the main inductees and Perry had done a very famous version of the song with his band Aerosmith. I think it was a call on the producers part in trying not to get into too long of a jam on the show. It's a minor drag, but it really would have been sweet to hear Page do a solo. Well too bad.

Still a great performance and fun performance, enjoy ; )

Metallica - Last Caress/So What

Posting the song "Light My Fire" by The Doors yesterday got me inspired. The Doors were rebellious and didn't care, they did not want to change their lyrics, they did not want to conform to the dull mainstream culture.
Something similar happened years later at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 1996. Metallica was set to play the song "King Nothing" from their highly successful follow up to 1991's "Metallica" aka. The Black Album; Load from 1996. They rehearsed the song King Nothing, but the producers told Metallica that their pyrotechnics was a safety hazard. Metallica was upset and decided to, well tell MTV how they felt through their song selection, to say it in an unfilthy manner. They changed song to playing Last Caress/So What, both songs with very graphic lyrics and swearing. This of course pissed off the censures, but hey, if they'd just given them pyrotechnics there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place.
I love it when bands rebel and don't do as they're told, makes it more exciting. We seriously need more artists today who'd be willing to do something like this. Today's music sucks!
Oh, and for the uber-fans, click here to see an exclusive behind the scenes of this performance including rehearsal footage of the band playing "King Nothing".

Enjoy ; )