May 2, 2004
Metallica with Godsmack
Alliant Energy Center – Madison, WI
Seeing Metallica at Alliant Energy Center in Madison, WI was the first of 6 Metallica shows in 2004 and the first time I saw Godsmack.
Kim and I arrived around 2pm that day to better our odds since we were going for the rail and we wanted to stand on one of the long sides. For this tour, the stage was in the middle of the floor and those sides didn’t allow for many people overall. As soon as we got to the floor, we were forced to fill in the short side, which meant we would have SOOOO many people behind us. NOOOOOO! Regardless, we got a spot.
Based on checking set lists for this tour, there was a chance of getting a particular song that had a debut earlier that year. Well, prior to the show, we asked a security guard near us to confirm a certain word on the set list. He looked and it was there. HOLY HELL! WE WERE GETTING DYERS EVE!!!
While this may have been my first time on the rail for an arena Metallica show, to this day, it still goes down as THE most aggressive crowd I have ever had to endure for any band. The push from the crowd behind us was so intense, to say the least. There were elbows in my back a lot of the night. Guys trying to move us from our spot on the rail. Not to mention the constant weight of all the people leaning and pressing against us for pretty much the entire Metallica set.
WE DID NOT BUDGE.
I also remember, during a song, James was singing in front of us, and I was singing along, when a surge from behind unexpectedly forced breath to escape from my mouth. WTF? That was a first. I’m not sure what James saw exactly, but I def remember the look on his face change to one of concern.
Now, according to the Metallica website Tour section… This was the sixth time in Metallica history that Dyers Eve was played live in its entirety. It was also the last song played. I don’t know why I remember this, but I can recall looking at the front row of people across the way, off to my right (around the corner of the stage) and many people had a look on their face like, “What is this song?”
I happily sang along and it was AWESOME!
End of the night. It was a GREAT set list, but we had been through H.E.L.L.
I don’t remember exactly, but when we were leaving the venue we must have passed by the MetClub table because Kim and I ended up handing out Some Kind Of Monster movie stickers as people were leaving the venue.
When we were done, we slowly walked back to the car. I can’t even explain the amount of pain we were in. We sat there for a little bit but I remember the question that came up… would we ever try for rail again. We needed some time to think. HAHA
Over the next few days, I found so many random bruises and Advil was my friend. Everything hurt.
Set list photo below is a Xerox copy of the set list given to me later by Jess, who was part of a Wisconsin Metallica Chapter.
