Review: Night 2 of Metallica’s Minneapolis ‘takeover’ was as commanding as the first

They used to be called “Metallicats” in the more underground days. James Hetfield kept referring to them as “the Metallica family” this weekend.

After his band’s second Minneapolis concert in three nights on Sunday, Metallica’s frontman could also now call their swarm of fans who nearly filled U.S. Bank Stadium two nights apart metal’s nearest thing to Deadheads.

“We’ve taken over this city,” Hetfield not-so-boastingly declared near the start of Sunday’s two-hour set in the Vikings stadium. “All I see is Metallica shirts every-[expletive]-where I go.”

Yep, the fans dressed alike, much as the Deadheads used to do (just substitute black T-shirts for tie-dyed). They came from all over, too, much like the throngs that followed that other San Francisco band around for decades (filling hotels instead of campgrounds, given the urban setting).

The 50,000 or so attendees on hand Sunday especially showed Deadhead-like enthusiasm over the fact that Metallica played completely different set lists each night — an old Grateful Dead trait that’s much less common nowadays, as concert productions are way more tightly choreographed. Some of the songs on Night 2 even had weird, Dead-worthy titles that only diehards would geek out for, such as “Lux Ӕterna,” “Inamorata” and “The Call of Ktulu.”

In the end, Metallica’s pledge that this would be a “no-repeat weekend” proved to be much more than a good gimmick. It was also a reminder of how the band put out many records before and after 1991′s “Black Album,” the one that made it one of the top-selling rock acts of all time.

Sunday’s set list was less of a crowd-pleaser than Friday’s, but it picked from a wider cross-section of LPs.

The old-school Metallicats were treated to a trifecta of thrashy early era nuggets at the start of the show: “Whiplash,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Ride the Lightning.” More casual fans were also rewarded at the end Sunday with two of the group’s biggest hits for a grand-slamming finale: “One” and “Enter Sandman.”

In between, the quartet played more songs off its newest album, “72 Season,” including the punky blaster “Screaming Suicide” and the bloated 11-minute closer, “Inamorta.” It also threw in more mid-era tunes (‘96-’09), including “Until It Sleeps,” “The Day That Never Comes” and “Moth Into Flame.” There was more pyro in Sunday’s show, too, thanks to that latter tune and the warlike effects laced into “One.”

Each night featured a couple of the same showy stunts, albeit with different music involved. First, the band again plucked a little-played instrumental tune off an early album. This time it was “The Call of Ktulu,” which Hetfield again dedicated to late bassist Cliff Burton while current bassist Rob Trujillo stood in with almost giddy enthusiasm.

In another repeated bit from Friday, Trujillo and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett teamed up on an improvised montage as a duo featuring a nod to local lore. In this case, Hammett inexplicably sang “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” theme, even more inexplicably followed — but why not? — by Hammett singing Ozzy Osbourne’s “Over the Mountain.”

Sunday’s opening acts were different, too, with a couple of metal’s hottest bands of the past decade, Ice Nine Kills and Five Finger Death Punch.

The latter group didn’t drum up as manic a reception as Pantera did in the middle slot Friday, but the Las Vegas quintet did eventually win over fans as it turned up its intensity via a doomsday-flavored rendering of “House of the Rising Sun” before its own dark anthem “Never Enough.”

Two things that didn’t change from Friday to Sunday: The sound was decent each night, credit for which likely goes to the stage being in the center of the notoriously echoey stadium; and Hetfield’s sometimes tour-damaged voice maintained a strong edge at both shows, probably thanks in part to the night off between the shows.

“We’ve got some young fans in the crowd … and we’ve got older farts here on the stage in their 43rd year,” Hetfield, 61, said at one point. “Will they ever stop?”

The various schemes behind this weekend’s concerts — and the fans’ undeniably excited reception for them all — strongly position Metallica toward not having to stop anytime soon.

Click here to see the set list and review from Night 1.