— I know, intellectually, that these guys must be LOADED. (Oops – I mean “FINANCIALLY loaded”) But only with this movie did I get a full sense of the scope of their massive wealth. Hilarious, too – they had pictures of Hetfield and Ulrich – as teenagers, basically – a black and white picture of the two of them, sitting by a stereo, and grinning like Satanic maniacs at the camera. They look like Wayne’s World. And yet … they are Wayne’s World who became millionaires many times over. Astonishing.
— In that vein – I was very moved by a concert they did at San Quentin. I didn’t really get the story straight. I think they wanted to film one of their videos in the prison, and then ended up doing a concert in the prison yard for the … prisoners. (I hate it when I word things awkwardly. Forgive.) Anyway, there’s Metallica – up on a makeshift stage. Out in the yard, separated from the band by a fence with barbed wire, are all these CRIMINALS. These men make the members of Metallica look like pussy-boys. And yet – when Metallica started to play, you could see all of these convicts just start jamming, as though they were at a regular concert. There was one shot of this massive beefy guy, no shirt on, sunglasses – covered in raging tattooes. This guy was terrifying looking. Yet there he was – banging his head back and forth.
Hetfield made a little speech about anger – about how anger was so much a part of Metallica’s music. Their latest CD was called St. Anger, after all. And Hetfield said, “I don’t know, man – if I hadn’t had music in my life, I might have been in here with you guys.”
And that was all he said (at least in the film – they might have edited more out). He didn’t go on and on, he didn’t preach – that was all he said – and then they started to rock.
It was pretty cool, I have to say.
