Metallica shakes Columbus during first set at Sonic Temple – The Columbus Dispatch

Even after over 40 years, Metallica still has it.
And by it, I mean their iconic heavy metal sound, the sort of pleasurable sonic bludgeoning that metalheads worldwide adore. The fans were out in abundance May 9 for Metallica’s first of two sets at Sonic Temple, headbanging, throwing up devil horns and letting the music quake through them.
It was the band’s first appearance in Columbus since 2017, and its first time headlining Sonic Temple. There was a palpable sense of pent-up energy, like lightning in a bottle ready to be let out, in the crowd in the minutes before Metallica took the stage.
After a short delay and a few videos with non-Metallica songs, the band exploded onto the stage with a classic, „Creeping Death.“ The stage’s screens and lights bathed the crowd in a bright red light as they got their first taste of the band’s signature high-octane sound.
They kept the energy up for their next three songs, crashing through „Harvester of Sorrow,“ slamming through „The Shortest Straw“ and careening through „King Nothing.“
The band’s members, all men in their 60s, were in fine form throughout. James Hetfield’s voice is still capable of producing his iconic half-yelling singing style as if the year were 1981. Lars Ulrich still hits the drums like they owe him money, his face contorting in a mixture of ecstasy and rage. Kirk Hammett can still shred with the best of them. And Robert Trujillo on the bass is still the beating heart of the band’s sound.
After they played through their first four songs, Metallica took the audience through a tour of some of their newer work. First there was the electric and high-flying „72 Seasons“ off of their most recent album of the same name, then the aggressive but a little melancholy „If Darkness Had a Son.“
Here, Hetfield and Ulrich took a break while Trujillo and Hammett had a short jam session, playing a shred-heavy composition they call „Devil’s Lettuce.“
Once the full band was back, it was back to their more recent work with „The Day That Never Comes“ and „Shadows Follow.“ Then there was a brief leap back in time with „Orion“ before Metallica busted out their somber hit „Nothing Else Matters.“
While the rest of the show was all headbanging and screaming, „Nothing Else Matters“ had the audience swaying with their phone flashlights in hand while Hetfield crooned onstage.
After that, it was time for Metallica to hit the audience with a freight train of sound. The last third of the concert was dedicated to a series of nonstop, back-to-back hits. Every song would bleed into the next right as you were trying to catch your breath from the last one.
First up was „Sad but True,“ which you can’t help but bang your head to. Then there was „Battery,“ a song that starts with a deceptively acoustic-sounding guitar before it becomes a machine gun of heavy metal.
Up until this point, the visual components of the show were limited to a series of large screens showing stylized graphics and video of the band playing and a large array of multicolored lights. That would change for the next song, „Fuel,“ which began stealthily with Hetfield uttering its iconic opening line: „Gimme fuel, gimme fire. Gimme that which I desire.“
The front of the stage erupted in spouts of flame and loud fireworks in response to his request. The fire would keep going throughout the thrilling song, an absolute feast for the senses and a nice reprieve from the mildly chilly night.
It wouldn’t be a music festival without some beach balls for the crowd to bop around, so they were rolled out during their next hit, „Seek and Destroy.“ A roiling sea of humanity kept dozens of Metallica-branded balls afloat while the band treated the ecstatic crowd to a slightly less than lethal dose of heavy metal.
The lethal dose would come with the show’s final song, their mega-hit „Master of Puppets.“ The band pulled out all the stops for the finale, setting off fireworks onstage and into the night sky. This was the absolute peak of the show, a song so deliciously overwhelming that for a second, you might forget you had ever heard any other sounds.
After Metallica left it all out on the field, Hetfield had some final words to end the show:
„Metallica loves you,“ he said.
With the show they had just put on, it was easy to believe it.
Breaking and Trending News Reporter Nathan Hart can be reached at NHart@dispatch.com and at @NathanRHart on X and at nathanhart.dispatch.com on Bluesky.

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