Torn Between Two Loves

I really want to talk about James Cagney.

And yet … unfortunately, and inevitably, today is ALL ABOUT METALLICA – because I’m going to see this tonight. Finally.

I’m listening to their double album S&M right now. It’s the recording of a concert Metallica did in combination with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. So it’s Metallica – but with this major symphonic background, a massive orchestra jamming out behind them – and you can hear the crowd LOSING its collective mind. It is an exhilarating sound, an exhilarating album.

Also, I love, too, these symphony musicians being confronted, for literally the first time in their musical careers, with a ROARING crowd. A crowd on its feet for the entire concert, screaming, clapping along, roaring back at them … Metallica of course is used to that, but the orchestra was blown away by that SOUND.

Quotes from the liner notes, written by Michael Kamen, conductor:

Combining one of America’s most powerful orchestras, the San Francisco Symphony with the world’s most powerful rock band, Metallica, was really about imagining music on top and alongside of their songs. Conducting a conversation between two different worlds that share the language of music. Creating a dialogue between two worlds that celebrate the power of music …

I began by listening to and absorbing Metallica tunes … listening to the orchestra in my head and writing down what I heard …

Rock bands invent their own parts to play. Orchestras rely on a composer and a conductor to tell them exactly when and how and what to play. They will read ‘fly specks’ on paper if necessary, and add their own expressive skill to each note … making it come alive.

When the busses loaded with the symphony members arrived the first day of the show, they were met with cheering hordes of Metallica fans that had been camped out in the park across from the hall — not the usual greeting for a Symphony Orchestra. Something different was going on.

The first contact with the audience was a frightening roar which terrified the orchestra, more accustomed as they usually are to polite applause. The crowd’s reaction was like adrenaline on stage, and we all thrived on it. That kind of approval is inspiring!

The event was in a ‘formalized’ setting with orchestra members in ties and tails, ushers in uniforms, and band members and audience in stage and street wear.

To feel the audience give a standing ovation to me and the orchestra even before one note had been played was both reassuring and friendly, but I also got the feeling that the audience was applauding its own daring in being there. They were ready for anything!

The beauty of nearly 100 musicians — each of whom has dedicated their entire life to perfecting their ability to speak and express themselves through the music and their instrument and playing together — reacting to each other and the music is why the orchestra was originally formed…

As the evening unfolded there was a breaking down of barriers — not only between audience and players, but players and players. The band wandered around the stage and into the sections of the orchestra; orchestra players leapt to their feet, excited to be making music on the edge of their seats. We were not simply supporting; and certainly not ‘sweetening’ … instead the symphony actually became the ‘fifth Beatle’ — a member of Metallica.

Example: ‘Call of Ktulu’ is a symphonic piece even without the orchestra. A story in music. Metallica’s music is always a story. Adding an orchestra was like writing a film score to that story. Dancing around the sections of the tune. Every player in the orchestra working as hard as Metallica does, committed to the music.

After two evenings of sturm and drang — I suppose the thing that sticks most in my mind was the sheer balance in power between electric and natural instruments. The massiveness of it all was fantastic! I keep returning to Metallica’s ‘Rolling Stone’ quote: ‘We don’t expect easy listening … the band will match the 100-piece ensemble with full-on amplification …’

…It was a full-on musical experience with all players playing hard and soaking through their tuxes and black formals from the exercise. A bit like experiencing all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies and ‘The Rite of Spring’ in one evening! I remember during the intermission hearing string players saying how they should have brought a dry change of clothes, and ‘It’s Mitchum deodorant time’ from a perspiring horn player. I think the physicality of conducting and playing was the Symphony’s answer to Metallica’s ‘full-on amplification’ challenge…

Imagine taking a very stark black and white picture, tough and relentless, unpredictable yet hypnotic — as black and white as a piece of music on paper … as driving and powerfully honest as pumping guitars, bass, drums and voice can be … and adding orchestral light and shade, bursts of color, and surprising blocks of sound from all the incredible expressive musical instruments that have been created over hundreds of years to speak and sing our passion, our lives.

James Cagney is also pulling at my attention right now. But I have a hard time splitting focus. Always have. One passion at a time, please.

Metallica has taken over. For the moment.

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