Metallica "cares about you" at Leeds Festival

United Kingdom | | 23 August 2008

Metallica closed the opening day of Leeds Festival with their pioneering brand of metal making up for the mud.

The Bramham Park site suffered a deluge of rain but it did nothing to kill the atmosphere on an electric first day (Friday).

After a late no show from openers Bring Me The Horizon, Mindless Self Indulgence welcomed fans to their "hangover". Frontman Jimmy Urine strutted his way through the electro rock of 'Straight To Video', before closing with a hilarious mime along to 'There's No Business Like Showbusiness'.

The ferocious hardcore of Alexisonfire made Plain White T's MOR rock stand out like a sore thumb. However, their fellow Canadians took the chance to showcase the title track from recently-completed album 'Big Bad World' alongside crowd-wide singalong hit 'Hey There Delilah'.

However, the Main Stage curse struck again when Celtic punks Dropkick Murphys had to hold it together when guest vocalist Liberty Hayes suffered mic issues for a rendition of live rareity 'The Dirty Glass'.

Avenged Sevenfold were not so lucky. Despite performing with three members dogged by flu, they made it through half a set, even bringing up a female fan from the crowd for 'A Little Piece Of Heaven' before it became clear M. Shadows voice could take no more, the obviously annoyed frontman slamming his mic on the ground as he left.

Feeder humbly took to the main stage for an unassuming yet crowd-rousing set, checking off 'Buck Rogers' and treating us to new single 'Tracing Lines'. Tenacious D meanwhile were no strangers to subtlety; Kyle Gass and Jack Black turned up in lizard and wizard costumes, promised to 'Fuck Her Gently' and even incurred the wrath of Satan on deciding to pay tribute to "the greatest metal band in the world"... by playing 'Sweet Child Of Mine'.

Metallica crowned the evening in a classic style. Fireworks and flames lit up the skies above the main stage field as the band tore through a set that checked off 'Master Of Puppets', 'Kill 'Em All' and a tender version of 'Nothing Else Matters'. James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich took time for an explosive drum and guitar duel, as well as unveiling the first hint of forthcoming album 'Death To Metallica' in the form of new track 'Cyanide'. With 'Enter Sandman' topping an explosive set, even Hetfield's apparent disappointment at the size of the crowd for the encore (closed with 'Seek and Destroy') didn't dampen the crowd's spirits. True to Hetfield's word, "Metallica cares about you", the band hung around onstage for ten minutes afterwards to throw out sticks and plectrums, and banter with the crowd from the stage