All four nights had a similar theme and arrangement, though with different songs and guests.
Each night started with an instrumental, and the first night was a wonderful version of "The Call of Ktulu", one of their best, just a brilliant song. This was followed by an eclectic selection of songs from their back catalogue that are rarely heard live - "No Remorse", "The Shortest Straw", the awesome "Leper Messiah", recent opener "The Day That Never Comes" and "Carpe Diem Baby" for the first time ever live.
Then came the "new song" of the night, one of the four songs that had come from the Death Magnetic sessions but not made the cut for the album. All four were later released on the Beyond Magnetic EP. Tonight's addition was "Hate Train", which is arguably the better of the four over these nights. This was followed by the Nazareth cover, "Please Don't Judas Me".
From here we move into the 'special guests' stage of the evening. First was a member of Metallica's 'MetClub' fan club, John Dent, who came up to play guitar on "Wherever I May Roam". You would probably be just a little bit stoked about being able to do that. Then Metal Church's guitarist John Marshall, who was also a guitar tech with the band, and has on occasions filled in for James Hetfield when he has been incapacitated, came up to play on "Sad But True", before Rob Trujillo did a bit of doodling with "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth".
Support act for the night, the Finnish cello group Apocalyptica, who started out their life as a Metallica cover band, came out to join Metallica on stage and help out on a great version of "No Leaf Clover" as well as adding their unique style to the first half of "One". Following this, former bass player Jason Newsted made his way out to perform "Harvester of Sorrow" and "Damage Inc." with his former band mates, taking obvious glee in providing backing vocals once again in both of these songs.
More cover songs followed this. Saxon's lead vocalist Biff Byford came out and sang on a rousing version of that band's (probable) most famous song, "Motorcycle Man". After this, arguably the two people most influential in Metallica's musical love and direction came out, the mighty Diamond Head's lead singer Sean Harris and lead guitar Brian Tatler. To the delight of fans and band alike, they performed four of their songs that have been made more famous by Metallica than they probably could ever have been - "The Prince", "It's Electric", "Helpless" and "Am I Evil?", all absolute classics. This is what makes this night special, this kind of coming together of a legendary band, and the band that THEY looked up to and was inspired by.
The evening finished withan all-star jam, everyone from the night coming together to play the party encore, "Seek & Destroy".
This is a great live album of a great event and it is well worth a couple of listens for posterity.
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