Metallica in Apple Immersive: Wow! 🤘
Screenshots from Apple's teaser – sitting this close to Lars [right] is EPIC!
What did I just witness!? Absolutely the BEST film of a live gig ever, that's what 🤯❤️
I genuinely found myself getting choked up at some of the scenes in this three-song, 25-minute production, and I'm not even a die-hard fan of the band – although I feel like that could be changing ❤️ ... It might be because I've felt the feeling – if only a tiny bit, to be clear – of what it's like to play in front of a live audience.
This gave me goosebumps throughout, and I almost cried two-thirds of the way through. It's overwhelming. If all live concert productions could be like this in future, SIGN. ME. UP! 🤘🎸🥁👏
Notes on the Experience
Starting backstage and following lead singer Hetfield out into the crowd on his way to the stage – or, actually, on OUR way to the stage, because I was behind him – was brilliant. Immediate goosebumps. 99.999% of us on this planet will never get this experience, but now we can get closer to it.
With voiceovers from the band members and a variety of interesting camera angles and movement, this is a production that invites re-watches.
It's an experience of a gig that you can't get from being there. Not better – but sufficiently different that it really WORKS.
What Worked
- Floating on a cable-cam around and ON stage, up close to the band members. Slow movement, check (perfectly watchable in Immersive format). At one point I could've reached out and grabbed Hetfield's drink off his mic stand! 🫱🥤
- Flying OVER the crowd, looking down at all their faces... was weird, but I loved it.
- Up in the stands looking at the whole stadium... awesome. Rather than “a different shot," as it would be in "traditional" 2D video, in Immersive this felt like being teleported around the venue to experience multiple viewpoints, which would obviously be impossible in person but added to the experience here 🪄
- Sitting NEXT TO LARS on the drums, almost having to dodge his sticks and his crash 🫨😆
- The two-second clip sitting at the mixing desk. Give me this for significant chunks of the gig as well, please.
- My AirPods Pro, which got maxed out. Because how could you not listen to this LOUD AF? 🤘
What Didn't Work So Well (for me)
Was this production perfect? No. Some of what didn't work for me...
- Being “pushed" into the crowd's faces... camera moves into the folk in the front row got real intimate real quick. Too much, IMHO... found myself leaning back in places where this happened.
- Couple of harsh cuts to black/silence. Totally killed the atmosphere and took me out of the “live" experience.
Overall, this has me HYPED for more Immersive productions of this quality (or better?! 🤯)
It's a perfect compliment to a live gig experience. It won't replace it, but doesn't have to (and shouldn’t).
This was filmed 6 months ago (Sept 2024). I hope there are more productions like this in the pipeline.
Metallica's tour resumes from April-November. I'd buy a full length Immersive production after that in a heartbeat.
I'll take the seat next to Lars 🥁🖤🤘
Bravo, all 👏
Interview with Lars Ulrich
Zane Lowe interviewed Lars at SXSW a couple of days ago, and recounted similar feelings of watching the Immersive production...
"You walk out into the stadium, and the sense of the crowd that you're approaching... I'm getting goosebumps thinking about the experience... because you immediately are no longer a bystander, you're having the same experience James is having, with the same level of enthusiasm, excitement and anticipation... I've never ever experienced anything like it as a fan of a band or an artist..."
Completely agree, Zane!
Zane then asked Lars what it was like when he watched it back...
"Pretty overwhelming, sort of surreal, you get – still to this day – self-conscious. Really? That's what I look like when I drum? (...) but it's so f-ing crazy, and when your [Apple's] team came out a few months before and we were having the conversation about doing it, and understanding the technology and the possibilities (...) and then seeing a Metallica concert like that, and on top of that in Mexico City (...) it's such a beautiful thing."
Links
“Game changing is putting it lightly,” said Lars Ulrich of Metallica. “Seeing our concert like that, along with the energy of the Mexico City fans — it’s very immersive, and it’s super fun. We’ve always been interested in pushing the boundaries, and Metallica on Apple Vision Pro is exactly that.”
"Filmed in Mexico City during the sold-out second-year finale of the band’s M72 World Tour, Metallica features full performances of three longtime staples from the band’s stadium-filling live shows — “Whiplash,” “One,” and “Enter Sandman” — and was captured exclusively in Apple Immersive Video. This remarkable storytelling format is only possible on Apple Vision Pro, with ultra-high-resolution 180-degree video and Spatial Audio to give viewers unprecedented access to James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and Robert Trujillo — from vantage points as close up as the famed Snake Pit, to wide-angle views of the band’s energetic performance in the round."