James Hetfield’s all-time favourite Metallica song
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Why Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner was against Metallica headlining Glastonbury
Glastonbury loves nothing more than a controversial headliner that ruffles feathers among their traditional, Birkenstock-wearing festival-goers. Some scoffed at the festival’s announcement of Jay-Z in 2006 as well as their decision to book Beyoncè years later. With them, metal pioneers Metallica felt the same wrath in 2014.
Over the last couple of decades, Glastonbury has tried to stay abreast of contemporary trends and expand the identity of the festival. They’ve done this by championing hip-hop, which has displaced rock music in the mainstream, and Worthy Farm has accepted this change by handing headline sets to the likes of Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar.
Metal is another genre that has been neglected through the years by Glastonbury. The satanic imagery often portrayed by metal bands is at loggerheads with the peace and love mantra of the Somerset bash. Instead, the metal community forged their own underground culture and stayed away from establishment festivals.
People queued up to critique the festival when it was revealed Metallica would be topping the bill of the Pyramid Stage, which included Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner. Speaking to Time Out, Turner says he was curious about the culture clash and said: “I’m not sure it adds up. I know we’d buzz off it, but fundamentally could you have Metallica in the hippy nucleus?”
Meanwhile, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker commented: “They’ve probably not had much sleep and they’ve been indulging in certain things so the main thing is to be a vague, warm, friendly presence. Whether a full-borne rendition of ‘Enter Sandman’ is going to fill those criteria I don’t know.”
Furthermore, Metallica frontman James Hetfield’s membership in the National Rifle Association and pro-hunting stance led to an online petition picking up pace from animal rights activists, which was entirely legitimate criticism.
Metallica knew onlookers were watching their set expecting them to fail, and they simultaneously had the weight of the entirety of the metal community resting on their shoulders. However, they rose to the challenge and made doubters like Turner seem silly for questioning whether the band had the chops to perform on the Pyramid Stage.
Speaking to NME, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich was directly asked about the condemnation they received before they stepped on stage, to which the drummer replied: “Because we’re loners and we come from being disenfranchised and outcasts, we’ve always had issues of fitting in and over the course of Metallica’s ride, we’ve had this weird discontent about whether we were worthy or being accepted, so to still feel we had something to prove kept us on our toes.”
Ulrich then spoke about how Glastonbury is now an essential part of his calendar and said the fans made him feel “very welcomed” when they played in 2014. He added: “Obviously, we ended up feeling very welcomed by the fans, so it was a very positive experience, and now I plan my entire year around that fourth week in June.”
Watch the footage below of Metallica slaying Glastonbury with ‘Master of Puppets’.
