04 Jul 2026
issue 04 July 2026
Comments
The intensely ritualised choreography of the standard summer stadium show has one inbuilt structural issue, which is especially obvious when occurring this far north – and it is the fact that it takes place mostly during the hours of daylight. This is of perhaps minor significance for a breezy pop concert, when the powder-puff skies align more closely to the music. When it’s Metallica, however, and the first two songs in the set are called ‘Creeping Death’ and ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, the lack of an appropriately lowering mise-en-scène threatens to suck much of the (melo)drama from proceedings.
In the event, on a warm Thursday night in Glasgow, it’s fair to say that Metallica managed to circumnavigate this natural handicap. They were so ridiculously, gloriously OTT, it was as though a great velvety blanket of darkness was slipped across the sun for a couple of hours.
