Fiends Reunited
"Dress to impress," said the invitation. Dress for hypothermia more like it. Cleveland, Ohio might--as it claims on the brass plaque outside the windblown Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame museum--be the "birthplace of rock 'n' roll" (famed radio DJ Alan Freed, who coined the term, apparently staged the first ever rock concert here in 1952), but on this April weekend it's also the coldest place on earth. Arm wrestle with Greenland? No contest.
Still, I didn't come for the sight-seeing. I came to party--one of 150 friends and family Metallica invited to help them celebrate their induction into the Hall of Fame. With 24 hours to go before they don their dinner jackets and make the I'd-like-to-thank-God-my-mum-and-my-wife speeches the Oscar-like event seems to require, they're throwing a far more rock 'n' roll Induction Eve party in a back room at the House Of Blues.
First thing you see when you walk in is the bar. And, propped against it, availing themselves of free, flowing alcohol, are people who might have stepped out of the early chapters of a Metallica history book. Here's the fanzine editor who gave the band its first press; there are the rock journos who wrote the earliest Metallica features (in my case for the UK's Sounds magazine as their L.A. correspondent).
Here's Brian Slagel, whose L.A. label Metal Blade put Metallica's first-ever song on a compilation; there are the guys from Megaforce and Music For Nations, the band's US and UK indie labels, as well as the man who signed them to major label Elektra. Here are the record producers--Flemming Rasmussen, Bob Rock--and former band members, including their two surviving ex-bassists Ron McGovney and Jason Newsted. In fact the only living person missing is ex-guitarist Dave Mustaine--invited but declined. So much for the rumours that he'd bury the hatchet and do the inducting. Instead Flea got the job. He's here too, as are a smiling Jimmy Page and a limping Joe Perry.
Everyone's just casually hanging out, laughing and reminiscing, As Scott Ian of Anthrax put it to me, "It's like a high school reunion." James is the first to arrive, Lars is the last to leave, still chatting at the bar at 3am. Asked why they'd gone to the effort and expense of tracking us all down and flying us out--such unusual behavior from stars that some posited it might be a continuation of the therapy famously captured in the Some Kind Of Monster movie--he answered, "Because you all played a big part in us being here." Aww.
The next time I see Metallica it's 8pm the following night in the grand hall of a downtown building. The floor is filled with big round tables, like a wedding, everyone dressed to the nines. The front tables seat the inductors and inductees: Jeff Beck sitting with his inductor Jimmy Page; Ronnie Wood, arm around his young girlfriend, sharing a table with Flea; Bobby Womack hanging with Run-DMC; and, at the next table, Metallica with their wives and children and the father of their late bassist Cliff Burton. They're the last to go onstage.
Flea's induction speech is a prize-winner too. Tossing the pages on the floor as he goes, he tells of when he turned on the radio and heard "this music I couldn't believe f***ing existed. This beautiful thing, like nothing I'd ever heard in my life. I was just staring at the radio, like f**k, holy s**t, what was it? It wasn't punk, it wasn't heavy metal, I didn't know what it was but it was a mighty thing." It was inexplicable, he said, but it rocked. And if you have to ask why it rocked, "you'll never know."
Though it had to feel weird playing for people in evening suits and sequins, Metallica's live performance rocked--a super-heavy "Master Of Puppets" and "Enter Sandman," each featuring two bass players (Robert Trujillo and his predecessor Newsted). They returned for the grand finale--a seriously heavy cover of the blues song "Train Kept A-Rollin'"--augmented by Jeff Beck, Joe Perry, Ronnie Wood, Flea and an exhilarated Jimmy Page.
PS. Hetfield's acceptance speech offered the Hall Of Fame committee some suggestions for future inductees: Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, Rush, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Ted Nugent and Motörhead. With luck we'll see Lemmy up there yet.
Ride the lightning over to www.mojo4music.com
