It was seven minutes behind the initial schedule that Metallica arrived on stage on Sunday evening in Clisson. A miniscule setback compared to the years during which the tens of thousands of Hellfest fans were waiting for this moment. If, in the past, they had already been able to applaud the giants of Kiss, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Guns N’ Roses, Motörhead or even Rammstein right here, the sacred monsters of metal were still missing to complete the story. And this final chapter really started in March 2021.
But as it’s a headliner that we can’t decently downgrade during the day, a fourth day of the festival had to be added. We refuse nothing when Metallica decides to come and play in the middle of the Muscadet vineyards, including building a dressing room for them away from the others, with extraordinary dimensions of… 900 square meters (on several levels)! It must be said that inside, it is a staff of 120 people who worked there, with cooks and personal masseurs, in particular. And the height of excess, each instrument was watched by a security guard, that is to say about twenty big guys mobilized only for the guitars!
Moreover, one of them failed just before arriving in Loire-Atlantique. Panic on board, this is a particularly rare ESP model, which only exists in one copy in France! But since legends are always written with improbable twists, the owner of this collector’s item is none other than… Ben Barbaud! “The brand warned the production, which calls me to ask me if I can lend my guitar so that they can play with it”, laughs the person concerned who, obviously, was not asked.
So much for behind the scenes. On the stage side, needless to say that the Clisson site reached its maximum capacity (60,000 people) at the end of the afternoon for a show scheduled, therefore, at 11:05 p.m. weekend, many spectators had thus only bought a ticket for this specific day, without necessarily worrying about the rest of the programming. For two hours, in a concert regulated, inevitably, like music paper as blockbusters know how to orchestrate them, the Californians unrolled their biggest hits, from “Enter Sandman” to “Nothing Else Matters” via “Seek and Destroy to end with the explosive “Master of Puppets”. And this is how, after two years of silence in Clisson due to the Covid, the high mass of hard rock closed in a deluge of decibels and lasers. After more than 350 bands lined up over seven days (two consecutive festival weekends were held), Metallica made everyone agree: behind the majestic cathedral that acts as the entrance to Hellfest, it was indeed , this Sunday, the day of the lords.
