MetallicaVault PSA
 

You may or may not know that when you buy the new Metallica album "St. Anger", you are given a code key to log on to www.metallicavault.com and download the mp3's to 3 full live shows. I was pretty psyched about this, as I never bought "Live Shit: Binge and Purge", and figured this was a big bonus.

Well I'm a bit disappointed. First of all, you can't hear the audience much at all, which takes away from that big arena sound. Almost every track, James is drumming up some audience response that you can't hear, or letting the audience sing lines to the song that you again can't hear.

Secondly, many songs are repeated between the 3 concerts, and they are all songs that most of us don't want (ie shit off of Load and Reload). Barely anything from Justice (just "One"), only one version of Master of Puppets (which they mysteriously end right before the slow instrumental section), etc.

Here are the track listings of the three concerts, followed by my reccomendation of which tracks to get, and which to save your time (and bandwith) by skipping.

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - 1996

1. Intro
2. Creeping Death
3. Sad But True
4. Ain't My Bitch
5. Whiplash
6. Bleeding Me
7. King Nothing
8. One
9. Devil's Dance
10. Bass Solo / Nothing Else Matters / Until it Sleeps
11. For Whom the Bell Tolls
12. Wherever I May Roam
13. Fade to Black
14. Medley - Ride the Lighting / No Remorse / Hit the Lights / The Four Horsemen

MIDDLETOWN COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS, NY - 1994

1. Master of Puppets (well, the first 4 minutes of it)
2. Wherever I May Roam
3. Harvester of Sorrow
4. Kirk Guitar Solo
5. Sanitarium
6. The God That Failed
7. Medley - Ride the Lightning / No Remorse/ The Four Horsemen / Phantom Lord / Fight Fire with Fire
8. For Whom the Bell Tolls (with a jam intro)
9. Seek and Destroy (sung by Jason)
10. Kirk Solo
11. Nothing Else Matters
12. Creeping Death
13. Bass Solo
14. Fade to Black
15. Whiplash
16. Sad But True
17. One
18. Enter Sandman

CLEVELAND, OH - 1998

1. Fuel
2. The Memory Remains
3. Bleeding Me
4. Bass Solo and Jam
5. Nothing Else Matters
6. Until it Sleeps
7. King Nothing
8. Wherever I May Roam
9. One
10. Fight Fire With Fire
11. Low Man's Lyric
12. The Four Horsemen (Acoustic)
13. Whiplash (Acoustic)
14. Audience talk and Jam
15. Sad But True
16. Enter Sandman
17. Creeping Death

That's 49 tracks, but when you cut out all the jams, solos and pattter, that's only 21 or so distinct songs. One, Nothing Else Matters, Creeping Death, Wherever I May Roam and Sad But True are in all 3 concerts, as are some form of The Four Horsemen, Whiplash, and either Ride The Lighting, No Remorse or Fight Fire with Fire. Most of the "Solo" or "Jam" segments aren't that great.

So if you want to distill all of this down to one pretty good double CD, I would recommend the following:

DISC 1:

1. Fuel - CLEVELAND (5:21)
2. The Memory Remains - CLEVELAND (5:14)
3. Creeping Death - CLEVELAND (8:22)
4. Sanitarium - MIDDLETOWN (7:13)
5. Wherever I May Roam - BIRMINGHAM (7:20)
6. Ain't My Bitch - BIRMINGHAM (5:31)
7.Whiplash - MIDDELTOWN (though the Acoustic version is a change) (5:05)
8. Nothing Else Matters - CLEVELAND (6:18)
9. Low Man's Lyric - CLEVELAND (7:16)
10. One - MIDDLETOWN (10:04)

TOTAL TIME - 67:34

DISC 2:

1. Sad But True - CLEVELAND (6:13)
2. God That Failed - MIDDLETOWN (5:58)
2. For Whom the Bell Tolls - BIRMINGHAM (5:48)
3. Fight Fire With Fire - CLEVELAND (5:58)
3. Harvester of Sorrow - MIDDLETOWN (6:56)
4. Medley - BIRMINGHAM (12:06)
5. Fade to Black - MIDDLETOWN (7:34)

"Encore"

6. Master of Puppets - MIDDLETOWN (4:04)
7. Seek and Destroy - MIDDLETOWN (10:00)
8. The Four Horsemen (Acoustic) - CLEVELAND (3:45)

TOTAL TIME - 68:22

Of course you could sub in a song like "Enter Sandman" (which I hate) if you don't like the others. Anyways, I hope this helps...

Interesting break down.

I'm not going to buy the new CD but what quality are the mp3's?

the mp3's are of various quality. They sound like they are taped off of the mixing board, which probably explains how quiet the crowd is in the mix.

When given the choice between the three versions of a given song, i chose the one with the best sound AND the best playing (one version of One, for example, has some pretty sloppy guitar by kirk)

The mp3's are at 128 kpbs and sound like they are recorded through the mixing board, so they are of decent quality considering.

I completely forgot about this, I'll have to go and download these a little later. Thanks for the reminder.