Metallica singer James Hetfield fell on stage during a concert in the Netherlands on Monday. While he’s just fine, the frontman admitted his ego is quite hurt.
The band continues to perform in European arenas in September, October, and November. After a holiday break, they return to Europe for more shows in February, March, April, and May.
Bruised ego and hurt feelings
Metallica‘s James Hetfield fell into an open trap door during a performance of ‘Now That We’re Dead’ in Amsterdam on Monday night.
“Is everybody ok?” Hetfield asked the crowd after falling over. “Yes, I’m ok. My ego, not so much. But we’re fine. Hurt my feelings a little bit.”
Hetfield tripped on one of four openings that allowed tables of percussion to be lifted onto the stage from below.
Fans captured footage of the fall on their phones; one angle from slightly above the stage shows that the trap doors opened only moments before the singer’s tumble.
He clambered out of the trench with help from crew members and continued playing, planting one foot on the drum riser and squeezing a few more riffs out of his guitar.
When Metallica toured North America this summer – their first substantive U.S. jaunt in eight years – they brought their largest stage production ever: transporting 83 laser fixtures and close to 40,000 speakers in 48 trucks.
“Full Stadium runs can sometimes be a little intimidating,” drummer Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone.
“There are all these things to worry about like, ‘You should really try to play maybe only on the weekend,’ and, ‘Where do you play on Tuesday?’ and some of those practicalities can get a little bewildering. We just threw caution to the wind.”
Reissuing ‘Master of Puppets’
Metallica will reissue their landmark breakthrough LP, 1986’s ‘Master of Puppets’, this fall as a gargantuan box set.
The super deluxe edition contains vinyl and CDs with the album remastered, live performances, interviews, rough mixes, and demos, as well as DVDs with concert films and interviews.
The package, which will come out on November 10th, also includes a cassette live album, reproductions of lyrics, and buttons.
The most interesting rarities include “work-in-progress rough mixes” of the entire album, as well as two never-before-released cover songs: Diamond Head’s ‘The Prince’ (later re-recorded with bassist Jason Newsted) and the punk group Fang’s ‘The Money Will Roll Right In.’ There’s also Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield’s riff tapes from 1985, and concert recordings from 1986 and 1987 in a number of locations.
Since its release in March 1986, ‘Master of Puppets’ has become one of the most revered and canonical metal albums, ranking number two on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Metal Albums list, just behind Black Sabbath‘s ‘Paranoid’.
Source: The Toronto Sun