Sophia Michaels
Metallica revisited their club days last night with a special set list that featured songs only from 1983 and ’84. The benefit gig, which took place at the 7,000-seat Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida, honored the memories of the late Jon and Marsha Zazula, who signed the pioneering thrashers to their first record deal and released their first two albums, Kill ‘Em All and Ride the Lightning.
One of the highlights of the set was “Trapped Under Ice,” a whiplash-inducing speed-metal horror vignette from Ride the Lightning. Fan-shot video shows the group taking the track at a furious clip; frontman James Hetfield even sang the song in the higher vocal pitch he recorded the song at.
Before “Motorbreath,” the riff-stuttering Kill ‘Em All track, Hetfield told the audience, “Thanks for coming and celebrating the life of Jonny and Marsha Zazula. Without them, we would not be here today.” Other highlights included rarely played songs like “No Remorse,” “Phantom Lord,” and “The Call of Ktulu,” the latter two of which were co-written with Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine when he was a member of Metallica. They also performed the two cover songs they released as an EP called Garage Days Revisited: Diamond Head’s “Am I Evil?” and Blitzkrieg’s “Blitzkrieg.”
In another retro nod, the group that opened for Metallica last night was Raven; on Metallica’s first tour, they opened for Raven, who were also signed to the Zazulas’ Megaforce label.
“Jonny gave us our first break in New York, released our first albums on his Megaforce Records label, and put us out on the road for our first real tour,” the band said previously in a statement. “With Marsha by his side, Jonny was a mentor, a manager, a label head, and a father figure to us all…. we would not be where we are today without the two of them. Sadly, we recently lost both Jonny and Marsha, just a little more than a year apart.”
The concert raised money for MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s charitable foundation, which provides musicians in need with support for health, mental health, and living expenses. Metallica’s All Within My Hands Foundation also said it would donate to the Feeding South Florida food bank.
