James Hetfield and Metallica. The two go hand-in-hand, and it almost feels wrong to imagine the iconic metal act performing without its co-founder and vocalist strumming along.
But at A Day On The Green festival in Oakland in 1992, Hetfield took to the stage with the band and decided to go completely without a guitar. In the clip, he can be seen bouncing around the stage but not holding on to anything.
“This was a very special show with James channeling his inner Danzig as a front man vocalist with no guitar,” said YouTuber fromthenosebleeds upon the uploading the video.
There was a pretty good reason for the lack of guitar as well. As Metal Injection points out, Hetfield was burnt on stage by pyrotechnics that went wrong, while Metallica was touring with Guns N’ Roses.
As a result, former Metal Church guitarist John Marshall fills in with his axe during a period of four weeks while Hetfield recovered from his burns.
Marshall was no stranger to the band by this point, having previously jumped in for Hetfield in 1986 when the band’s frontman broke his wrist in a skateboarding accident.
I’ve got it amid, it’s pretty weird just watching Hetfield standing behind the mic stand and without his guitar in front of him.
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It’s coming up to the 40th anniversary of Metallica’s founding in 1981, and speaking ahead of the milestone, Lars Ulrich recently said the band are keen to keep going.
“All those clichés about ‘age is just a state of mind,’ but there is definitely a part of me that still feels like all the best years are ahead of us. I guess that’s kind of how I have always thought,” he said.
Check out Metallica performing without James Hetfield on guitar:
