{"id":105065,"date":"2025-08-29T09:34:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T09:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/105065\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T09:34:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T09:34:07","slug":"metallica-seek-destroy-the-hamptons-at-smallest-show-in-a-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/105065\/","title":{"rendered":"Metallica Seek, Destroy the Hamptons at Smallest Show in a Decade"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLook, it\u2019s not as if Metallica<\/a> in the year of the Lord 2025 is anything remotely like these lovable 20-year-old miscreants<\/a> that terrorized the Bay Area and beyond. They\u2019re all in their sixties now, kinder, gentler, and presumably insanely loaded rock gods who you could see being the quirky, out-of-place neighbor at some comically rich enclave like the Hamptons. Wikipedia really buries the lede here, calling the 50-ish-mile stretch of Long Island \u201ca popular seaside resort and one of the historical summer colonies of the northeastern United States.\u201d Sure, that\u2019s technically true in the same way that LeBron James is a \u201cpopular basketball player good at scoring points.\u201d But the ostentatious markers of wealth found in many areas here \u2014 Move Over, $100 Lobster Salad. In the Hamptons, These Melons Cost $400<\/a> \u2014 have ventured into parodic territories Christopher Guest couldn\u2019t even envision.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, as the group takes the stage in a giant tent behind the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett Thursday night, it\u2019s hard not to envision an alternate universe in which the thrash pioneers who once kicked holes in hotel walls now summer here alongside famed residents Billy Joel, Jay-Z, and Paul McCartney (the latter rocking out tonight at the side of the stage). In this mythical world, there\u2019s Lars sipping a Wolffer Estate Chardonnay at the Hampton Classic Horse Show. There\u2019s Robert down the street from Talkhouse downing something called a \u201cHeavy Metal Detox Smoothie\u201d at the local healthy eatery (with barley grass juice powder, organic Atlantic dulse, and spirulina powder, the same stuff I presume that fueled Exodus and Venom). There\u2019s Kirk browsing Modern Luxury Hamptons magazine en route to the Olsen twins\u2019 clothing store. And there\u2019s James walking across the street to bucolic Amagansett Square, where he can buy goat milk ghee ($19.95 a jar), organic white truffle acacia honey ($18.95 a jar), and whatever the fuck mushroom mocha milk is ($34.95 a bag) at a nearby grocery store. And the 500-capacity makeshift stage \u2014 the smallest show the band has played in nearly a decade \u2014 is right in their backyard.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019d have to go back to either 2016 or literally Antarctica<\/a> to see the band in a venue this small. They\u2019re here to celebrate \u201cMaximum Metallica,\u201d<\/a> a new 24-hour music channel revolving around the band premiering Friday on SiriusXM. (The company has hosted Coldplay, Dave Matthews, Ed Sheeran, and Mumford & Sons here in past years. Big Heavy Metal Detox Smoothie energy, all of them.) \u201cThe location of this show is not the typical Metallica concert venue,\u201d the band\u2019s website helpfully notes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is jarringly accurate. In front of me, the diehard fans who travel around the world to see as many shows as possible post up near the rail. To my left, Howard and Beth Ostrosky Stern say hello to Michael J. Fox while Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and wrestler Chris Jericho hang nearby. (Colin Jost, Sylvester Stallone, and Andy Cohen all float around separately, though I want to picture them together trading their favorite Cliff \u2018Em All moments.)<\/p>\n

\n\tTo my right, (now former<\/a>) SNL vet Heidi Gardner unassumingly takes in the show, while behind me, three women in cocktail dresses who were either Hamptons socialites or Real Housewives cosplay mill about since this is the \u201cshow of the season.\u201d This is not including the appearance of Topper Mortimer, the ex-husband of an actual Housewife, but let\u2019s get to the show itself already.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo yeah, not your typical venue in the least. But over 95 minutes, the band balance the surrealness by sticking to the classics \u2013 nine of the 13 songs are the most-played ever \u2013 with \u201cWhiskey in the Jar\u201d the only sorta kinda deep cut. This is not a complaint, as the band seem reinvigorated at playing a show this small. \u201cThis reminds us of the club days,\u201d singer James Hetfield says to thunderous roars before launching into the Reload single \u201cFuel.\u201d \u201cGetting hot and sweaty and up close and personal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt our age, we didn\u2019t get to see them play club shows,\u201d superfan Austin Manning tells Rolling Stone before the gig, standing alongside dozens of fans who arrived as early as six in the morning to congregate and take in the scene. \u201cWe didn\u2019t get to see them with [bassist] Cliff [Burton, who died in 1986]. Our experience has been festivals, arena shows, and stadiums. This is the closest to an old-school club gig I\u2019ll ever get.\u201d Manning arrived Wednesday night just in time to run into Hetfield at a restaurant down the street from the venue, where he says the singer acknowledged the surreal gig with a \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see a familiar face around here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut at the show, Hetfield will mostly let the music do the talking, save for a charming \u201cWe\u2019re gonna get loud tonight. The neighbors are gonna know who\u2019s here\u201d before \u201cFor Whom the Bell Tolls\u201d and a funny preamble before \u201cSad But True\u201d: \u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019re gonna like this next song but we\u2019re gonna play it anyway; it\u2019s pretty good. It\u2019s kinda heavy, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGuitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo will devote their nightly \u201cdoodle\u201d to Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s \u201cCrazy Train,\u201d<\/a> eliciting one of the biggest applauses of the night, while the final four songs \u2014 \u201cSeek and Destroy,\u201d \u201cOne,\u201d \u201cMaster of Puppets,\u201d and \u201cEnter Sandman\u201d \u2014 pummel the crowd just as hard as when they were released decades ago. (By the way, to the teenage fan near me who called his mom just so she could hear \u201cEnter Sandman,\u201d you are both great.)<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd while the set may have been geared to a more casual listener, the superfans walked away happy. Camila Guerrero Diaz is known to devotees of the group as one of Metallica\u2019s most diehard fans, having gone to around 180 shows, sporting multiple Metallica tattoos, and getting personal hellos from Lars on most shows. She works in a mine camp in south Australia in a \u201cremote space that you can only fly in and out of.\u201d When the band\u2019s management invited her to the show three weeks ago, it was an easy decision. She \u201cflew back to civilization\u201d and took three more flights \u2014 Adelaide to Auckland to Houston to New York \u2014 to attend the show. \u201cThe last 24 hours of my life have been in the air.\u201d She\u2019s doing it all again Friday to go back home. (Incidentally, it wasn\u2019t even close to the longest time she spent to see the band. That would be 63 hours on a boat to be one of the lucky few to watch them play Antarctica in 2013. \u201cThere was a putrid smell coming off the drain \u2018cause everyone was vomiting on the boat,\u201d she says. \u201cBut it was worth it.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tSo where does the band go from here? Rumors of the group\u2019s interest in playing a residency at the Las Vegas Sphere<\/a> have been swirling, though it\u2019s unclear if that\u2019s based more in fact or wish fulfillment. For tonight, though, the unlikely marriage between thrash pioneers and moneyed blue-bloods consummated beautifully. And maybe, just maybe, a horseshoe-moustached, hardened rocker with a booming growl will quietly leave a grocery store tomorrow to take his mushroom mocha milk back home.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tMetallica at Stephen Talkhouse Setlist<\/p>\n

\n\t1. \u201cCreeping Death\u201d
2. \u201cFor Whom the Bell Tolls\u201d
3. \u201cWherever I May Roam\u201d
4. \u201cKirk and Rob Doodle\u201d (Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s \u201cCrazy Train\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0
5. \u201cFuel\u201d
6. \u201cFade to Black\u201d
7. \u201cSad but True\u201d
8. \u201cThe Unforgiven\u201d
9. \u201cWhiskey in the Jar\u201d\u00a0\u00a0
10. \u201cNothing Else Matters\u201d
11. \u201cSeek & Destroy\u201d
12. \u201cOne\u201d
13. \u201cMaster of Puppets\u201d
14. \u201cEnter Sandman\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Look, it\u2019s not as if Metallica in the year of the Lord 2025 is anything remotely like these…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,60082,7874,341,60083],"class_list":{"0":"post-105065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-live-review","12":"tag-metallica","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-sirius-xm"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}