EXCLUSIVE RED CARPET REPORT FROM METALLICA’S RN’R HALL OF FAME INDUCTION
Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 12:15pm by MetalSucksAxl’s thoughts on the ceremony will appear a little later today, as promised. In the meantime, a metal guy who was there for his other gig graciously hit us up with the exclusive red carpet report. Enjoy!
Before Metallica showed up, Iron Maiden sneakers walked the red carpet to the 24th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Concert, at Cleveland’s Public Hall Saturday, April 4.
The Maiden Vans were worn by Anthrax guitarist and VH1 talking head Scott Ian, who was there with drummer Charlie Benante. Ian said the new album is being mixed, and added that Maiden and Priest should be in the Rock Hall.
Metallica showed up and were whisked inside, without talking to the press or doing much to amuse the crowd of 300 onlookers. The band (and alum bassist Jason Newsted) arrived in a cluster, but in this order:
1) Rob
2) Kirk
3) James and family, the biggest of the Metalli-clans — the others had wives and
some parents with them
4) Lars
5) Manager Cliff Burnstein and Lars’ dad, whose beard is longer than ever.
6) Jasonic, who relatively took his time. He seemed really glad to be there. The crowd greeted all the guys with loud cheers – all night long, they consistently got the biggest pops, by far. Newsted’s cheers were just as loud. He turned to the crowd and raised goat horns, arm fully extended skyward. The press still couldn’t get interviews, but I was three feet away, so I (sincerely) told him his work with Voivod was great, and he seemed to appreciate it, nodding with a closed-mouth smile.
So there it was, in the mix of that establishment tux-and-tails broohaha: Anthrax – half of SOD. Maiden kicks. Goat horns. And brief talk of Voivod.
Here’s Flea’s induction speech, which you’d have thought might suck, but was goddamned amazing.
Wow, that speech was great. Quite possibly the best speech on Metallica and heavy metal evar!
Awesome. The whole Metallica part of the show was just great.
I saw Flea the next day (I guess that would be yesterday) at the Cavs game in Cleveland… even with the blue hair, it took me three quarters to spot him from my nosebleed seats after they showed him on the jumbotron. He was wearing the same jacket, too. Turns out he’s in most of the pictures I took.
Good speech… he seems a bit nervous, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. He did a lot better than I expected.
Flea was great; I loved that they let Ray Burton speak first (very touching), I loved that Jason got as much mike time as anyone else, I loved how genuinely touched all the band members (maybe even Lars?) seemed, and how unpretentious and human the whole thing was. Good stuff.
I did not think Flea would suck. And he did not. That’s a great speech. Hell, he’s in The Big Lebowski and was awesome as one of the Nihilists.
Flea, funny thing is, with all the celebrities out there he was the only one I got a picture with. He was really cool, he took time to talk with me and Dan of Maximum Threshold Radio.
After the show in the Press Room Lars came out by himself and the press went crazy! Someone asked him where the after party was and he responded “At your mom’s house”. Classic moment.
That was a great speech. Such a moving tribute to Cliff. Anyone else notice the “If You Have To Ask” reference?
Flea for president, he speaks better in public than Obama…and even Flea wasn’t too great technique-wise…did enjoy the content though
Flea sounds a little like Blitz…
@FriQue
Haha he really does.
And I thought the speech was very good. Surprisingly good.