Here's me watching S&M 2 on the ever-so-slightly overpriced DVD so you don't have to. Fade to..., eh, into, hmm, a rapid jerky intro of travelling high speed through San Francisco in a car. Oh, there's a fan from Columbia roaring approvingly at a camera. An outside shot of the famous Fillmore club on Geary boulevard, home to many a rock legend live set, but unfortunately onward toHere's me watching S&M 2 on the ever-so-slightly overpriced DVD so you don't have to. Fade to..., eh, into, hmm, a rapid jerky intro of travelling high speed through San Francisco in a car. Oh, there's a fan from Columbia roaring approvingly at a camera. An outside shot of the famous Fillmore club on Geary boulevard, home to many a rock legend live set, but unfortunately onward to black-clad 'metalli-fans' outside the spangly new corporate 'Chase Center'. This performance is a christening of sorts, coming two weeks after opening. Yes, yes, you have tickets, stop being smug. And it's gone none more black, we're inside, cameras panning, people cheering. A round stage, surrounded by the SF Orchestra lit up just by their music stands. Serious looks. Middle-aged couples in the audience gurn in anticipation. Big cheer for conductor 'Edwin **** as he strolls out in black shirt with two rows of studs buttoned across his shoulders. Edgy. A shot of an audience member holding a flag with Michael Kamen's face on it, then to smiling Edwin. Kamen's dead since '03. Big respek audience member! Thus ensues 15 minutes of widdly-widdly wind work before James opens his gob on song three: 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. Therein two upright lads fight over a xylophone in a panic. Moshtastic. Alas no. The hair on my neck remains seated, much like the crowd. With the jingly-jangly nature of the orchestra, the bombastic songs lose their primal punch, rendering them sort of like over-the-top Mission Impossible scenes, John Woo-style. Weird. Doesn't stop Edwin and the lads sharing celebratory grins with each other though. Slower songs, ala song 4: 'The Day That Never Comes', work well with cello accompaniment but fast bits evoke little Tom Cruise, knees up, elbows in, running nowhere in circles. There's a full 15 minutes of close-ups of fan-tallicas (all camera-friendly couples, not an unsightly freak in sight) and orchestra members (young beardy flautists) before James (with greased back two-inch sorta-silvery long-ish hair, looking not far from a pub regular in your home town) spits into the 'phone. At 32 minutes the audience is so bored they're resorting to acapella football-esque 'woah-woah-woahs' to the self-satisfied approval of sweaty tub-thumper Lars. The overblown nature of it all continues into newer tracks 'Confusion' (chunky, chugga, parp-peep filler) & 'Moth into a Flame' (fast trumpet noises), the refrain 'build a higher ground' works well with the orchestral lift mind you. Cue close up of Lars chewing his tongue and leering at the thought of all this done-before* money-spinning predictability. *By Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd for example. Saddle up for the 'Outlaw Torn' getting the biggest cheer for the chunkiest riff yet. Kirk has a Flying V! There's four cellomen readying themselves. No Wagnerian tritones but again, being slow tempo, this does work and, pray tell, a little shiver occurs. Although for the wrong reasons as the classical flourishes are reminiscent of those '80s Bellisario shows like Magnum when there's jeopardy ahead - De-de-daaah (hint of triangle and washboard). Then the colour has had enough of this rubbish and disappears for a piss during the intro of utterly forgettable and appropriately monochrome 'No Leaf Clover'. In the middle, the music stops, James goes off for a smoke and Lars address the crowd with his prowess for geography and blurts his way through the country flags he sees in the crowd. And much like his drumming, he makes mistakes. Therein I fall into a coma for the next 30 minutes of orchestral manure in the dark before being sickly awoken to Cliff Burton's 'Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)' which is uncomfortably strangled by what seems to be David Tennant in slip-on shoes and a distorted cello. RIP Cliff, glad you're not alive to witness this bland band shorn of the ingredients that made them resonate with fans. Finally a decent song stumbles back in from the toilets, holding four watery arena-priced cups of Heineken in a Styrofoam tray and 'Wherever I May Roam' pipes up. Short-lived consciousness and more shut-eye during 'One' where the granite slab of a riff is pitifully soaked down by the orchestra. The machine-gun ratta-tatta just farts out a wet request to take its eyes, arms, legs, and life, leaving it where it rightly belongs in "hell" (James squeals this out a castrato). That's it, enough soft-bag desecration. It's not working. I can't go on. Not even 'Enter Sandman' is saved. S&M 2? Sniffling & Mewling squared! *Headbutts keyboard*.… Expand
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