Metallica ‘Secret Guitar Hero’ show at SXSW

Metallica played what was supposed to be a ’secret show’ at SXSW in Austin last week as a promo for the ‘Guitar Hero’ video game. Here’s some random footage:

‘One’ shot on what is described as a ‘crappy Sony point and shoot’:

from the same source, here’s the opening of the show and ‘Creeping Death’. Actually its only part of ‘Creeping Death’ since the filmer didn’t want to ‘get caught in a mosh’ (to paraphrase Anthrax) and lose his camera:

This was shot by the band, so the film and sound quality is better. This first clip is the classic ‘Blackened’ from ‘And Justice For All’:

Finally, we’ll go back to the crowd shot footage for ‘Sad But True’ which has become along with ‘Enter Sandman’ and ‘Wherever I May Roam’ one of the really iconic songs from ‘The Black Album’.

We’ll add more footage as we find it. You’ve got to give credit to Metallica: for all of their well documented issues and the fact that they’re on a short list of the biggest bands in the world they can still tear it up in a small venue setting without all of the ‘Spinal Tap’ stage props. We’ve said it before, but the positive impact of Robert Trujillo on the band can’t be overemphasized. He’s a great bass player, but we’ve known that dating back to his work with Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves. What wasn’t known before is just how much energy he’d bring to Metallica live and how well he’d ‘mesh’ with the rest of the band. My personal opinion is that he’s done so well because unlike Jason Newsted, who was frequently bullied and picked on by the rest of the band, Trujillo is a guy that earned the respect of the rest of the band personally and professionally. Bottom line–if you rolled up on Trujillo he could settle it in the street, and that’s something that Hetfield, Ulrich and Hammett don’t want a piece of!