Metallica Perform Entire “Kill ‘Em All” Album
During the first day of this year’s Orion Music Festival last Saturday (June 8), event hosts Metallica took everyone by surprise by taking the stage under fake name Dehaan and charging through their entire debut album “Kill ‘Em All.”
Around 4:30 p.m, frontman James Hetfield first introduced “the total mystery band no one knows anything about.” The stage banner with words “Metal Up Your A-s” written above the crossed out Dehaan logo was a clear indication of what was about to go down, as the rest of the metal giants took the stage and started ripping through “Hit the Lights.”
In case the name Dehaan baffles you, it’s simply the last name of Dane Dehaan, the starring actor from the band’s upcoming 3D movie “Through the Never.” Fans unanimously agree that this is one of the coolest tricks Metallica pulled off in some time.
In a recent interview with Gibson, guitarist Kirk Hammett discussed the entire festival, calling it the group’s attempt to educate both themselves and the fans. According to Hammett, Orion Music is modeled after European summer festivals in a way that it comes with much more variety and is less specific genre-oriented than the typical US festivals.
“The hope is that sure, Orion will attract all these heavy metal fans and all the Red Hot Chili Peppers fans, but we’re hoping that someone that likes Bassnector or Foals or Japandroids might be into the heavy metal bands,” the axeman said. “And we’re hoping that heavy metal fans might be into Foals and go, ‘Oh my gosh. I had no idea these would people sound like they do. I’m surprised!’ And all of a sudden, there’s a new Foals fan because of the Orion Festival.”
The guitarist then talked about the specific intentions the metal four-piece has regarding the festival, saying, “What we’re trying to do is cross all these different genres and educate ourselves and educate the audience in the process. We’re trying to create a rock hybrid here in the United States. My point is, summer festivals in the United States are a lot more exclusive. They’re exclusively heavy metal, or they’re exclusively jam, or their exclusively alternative. We’re trying to do away with all of that. We want it to be a multicultural, multi-genre experience for everyone, ourselves included.”
As far as the new Metallica record goes, the follow-up to 2008’s “Death Magnetic” was recently described as an extension of its predecessor by bassist Rob Trujillo. Although the band is definitely working on numerous new ideas, no specific details have yet been revealed.