Last week, Metallica’s WorldWired Tour made a stop in Kansas City at the Sprint Center, and at just under 20,000 attendees, made this the highest attendance for a concert in the Sprint Center’s history. This may be partly due to the fact that Metallica’s stage is a “theatre in the round” format, thus opening up seating in levels that would normally be closed off. For those of you that are as geeky as me in regard to the stage production, you can check out a 4-part video series that documents the development of this tour production, from lighting to sound engineering. [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4]
As the lights dimmed to the sound of Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold”, the band members made their way out of the tunnel and onto the stage. Opening the evening’s set with “Hardwired” and “Atlas, Rise!” – the first two tracks from their most recent album, Hardwired… to Self-Destruct – the band launched into what would be a two and a half hour ride through their career and discography. The setlist consisted of tracks from the very early days, through to the present day. You can check out the running order listed below. Reaching back to the first full-length, 1983’s Kill ‘Em All, Papa Het and Company tore through classic tracks like “Seek & Destroy” and “The Four Horsemen”. Fan-favorite songs like “Creeping Death” and “For Whom The Bell Tolls” from the sophomore album, Ride The Lighting, further highlighted the early thrash metal stylings of the group, while tracks like “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” and “Master of Puppets” brought back memories of my teen years when I had the privilege of seeing Metallica with the late Cliff Burton play live.
The stage production included arrays of video cubes, large projection screens high above the stage at each of its corners, pyrotechnics, and an amazing multitude of lighted drones that buzzed in various formations around the stage above the performers’ heads during “Moth Into Flame”, which looked more like a swarm of fireflies than moths but fantastic nonetheless. The evening concluded with a three-song encore, and upon finishing with “Enter Sandman”, the audience erupted with a deafening roar of approval, having witnessed a legendary band perform like a well-oiled and HardWired machine.
Setlist:
- Hardwired
- Atlas, Rise!
- Seek & Destroy
- The Shortest Straw
- The Unforgiven
- Now That We’re Dead
- Creeping Death
- For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
- The Four Horsemen
- Fuel
- Moth Into Flame
- Sad but True
- One
- Master of Puppets
Encore:
- Spit Out the Bone
- Nothing Else Matters
- Enter Sandman
Photos by Thomas Woroniak Photography
METALLICA
