So, I met the guys from Metallica...

[CRAFTY]

Yes sir! Yours truly got to meet James, Lars, Kirk & Robert last Friday at Pukkelpop Festival here in Belgium during a Meet & Greet session.

How, you may wonder?
There was this contest on missionmetallica.com, my brother won, and he was allowed to bring one guest. I'm not the biggest Metallica fan on earth, but I've always followed their carreer, and the first album I ever bought was the Justice album (I was 10 at the time), so...a logical and wise choice to bring me along.

We had already ordered our Pukkelpop Festival tickets back in March, and Metallica was the only group we were really interested in seeing that day. Pukkelpop is known for having mostly alternative acts perform at the festival (check the site if you're interested), so we got there at about 12 AM. We were told to go to the Press office where our backstage passes would be waiting for us. The lady at the desk informed us that she hadn't received the final list yet, but that this could happen at any time. We waited for half an hour, and sure enough...my brother's name was on the list.
The guy behind the desk opened the envelope and then asked us if we realized how lucky we were, because usually people who win these contest they receive meet & greet cards, and that's it. But instead, we got two festival tickets, two backstage passes and two meet & greet cards. We were able to sell one of those festival tickets to a random guy looking for tickets (we sold it for 5 euros under the normal price, which was 75 euros).

In the envelope, there was a note saying that we had to report to the entrance of the VIP/Press Village at 8 PM.

So, during the day my brother and I already checked out the VIP/Press Village. Nothing much popping, except for the fact that you get more luxury than on the festival terrain itself: proper toilets (those of you who go to festivals know how dirty toilets are on the festival terrain), large tents decorated with palmtrees, a fountain, and a much more relaxed vibe overall. Perfect if you wanted to chill out for a moment.
The backstage area was divided into several parts: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J. We had only access to A-B-C-D-I-J. Later we found out that the missing letters was in fact the artists' section. Makes sense.

Anyways, at 8 PM we went to the entrance of the VIP Village. A representative of Roadrunner Records street team was already there gathering the selected fans for the meet & greet. There were about 14 other fans there, all of whom make part of the Met Club (they pay a yearly fee to join this fan club, and in return they're likely to get picked for a meet & greet when Metallica is in their country). Five fans didn't even show up btw! There was this one guy who had brought along his limited edition ESP guitar to have it signed by all four of the guys.
At about 8:20 PM, all of a sudden 3 big security guys came out and all the fans were asked to show their ID to someone from the Metallica entourage (blond lady). We were then told to stand in one line. We entered the Village, went straight through the artists' section (lots of them were looking at us like: oh here they are again...the Metallica fan club! Lol).

We were told that the blond lady would take the pictures with our cameras, camera phones and filming was not allowed. Other than, pretty relaxed atmosphere. We were also told that we had to choose 3 items to be signed.

At about 8:40 PM Kirk Hammet was the first one to appear (accompanied by security of course, check pic below). Then came Robert, then Lars (after waiting for 25 minutes! Surprise, surprise!) and then James.
All of them were cool as fuck. Each of them took their time to talk to us, take a pic and sign our stuff. The whole session lasted one hour and a half (including the 25 minute hold-up). I was expecting less to be honest.

So, that's it. GREAT experience. Will never forget this. Even though these guys are some of the biggest artists on the planet, they didn't give the impression that they were bored during the meet & greet. Lars even said that the meet & greet session was the most fun part of his day. (Makes sense, I guess, since the other things they can do over there is watch TV or surf the Web).

Pics:




the "MM" stands for Mission Metallica, in case you were wondering


the blond lady took the pics, the guy in the middle (Roadrunner Recs) filmed the meet & greet and the guy on the right took pics for the Met On Tour website.

[K.Dub]

Wow, that's dope!

+1

[smegma]

Wow, that's dope!

+1

[Lazar]

Good buddy of mine is a hardcore Mettalica fan. He would die to meet them

[everlast1986]

Wow, that's dope!

+1

[CRAFTY]

Btw...their show kicked ass as usual. Playlist:

Creeping Death
Fuel
Anywhere I Roam
Harvester of Sorrow
Ktulu -> Unforgiven
Cyanide
And Justice for All
No Remorse
Fade to Black
Master of Puppets
Damage Inc.
Nothing Else Matters
Sad But True
One
Enter Sandman
-------------------
Die Die Die (Misfits)
Motorbreath
Seek & Destroy

[h2k4]

Congrats on meeting them.  They seem pretty cool.  In my opinion, one of the best rock groups.

[funkkid]

thatz dope 

[Paul]

Congrats on meeting them.  They seem pretty cool.  In my opinion, one of the best rock groups.

i agree, in my top 3 anyway

[white Boy]

thats cool, i never met any celebs, but i never could get into them, musically i enjoy, but the singer, could never do it for me, cause well, he doesnt sing but yells

[Fuck Your Existence]

nice! one of my favorite bands...lucky bastard 

[the ghost]

Yeah hes known for being a yeller in the early records, but on load/reload he showed that he really can sing too.  And thats tight you got to meet them.

[Don Jacob]

wow i'm so fuckin' envious of you.....congradulations man! lol.


the greatest night of my life is when i saw them in the front row at the LA Coliseum in 2003....i almost died from getting squashed but it was worth it,lol.

[Kilo4]

fuck off these guys are total dicks, their music is shithouse.

[h2k4]

wow i'm so fuckin' envious of you.....congradulations man! lol.


the greatest night of my life is when i saw them in the front row at the LA Coliseum in 2003....i almost died from getting squashed but it was worth it,lol.

Haha.  They put on a hell of a show.  They don't really go all out for stage props (atleast not in the show that I saw) but they let the music speak for itself.