METALLICA – Hong Kong : January 20th 2017

It was a dream come true in Hong Kong tonight.

So, I am out of town on business, ending a long week and just for grins, I thought I would check one more time to see if there was even a chance of getting a ticket for the Metallica show at the AsiaWorld Expo. I knew they were on their Asia tour and that they were going to be in Hong Kong (apparently, their first time ever playing Hong Kong), but when I tried for tickets over the past several weeks, it had appeared to be sold out, and why wouldn’t be…right? Well, I took a chance and called the venue directly to see if by chance they may had released some obstructed view, or nose-bleed seats but to my amazement, they had some real good seats available and I scored one in the lower bowl, second section from the stage and four rows from the front! It was a miracle!

It was a little dicey with logistics, as I first had to come in from China and with Chinese New Year, traffic at the boarder was horrible, fortunately I did give myself plenty of time. Then I had to find one of the local ticket sales outlet to get a printed copy of my ticket.. this took me about an hour of roaming the back streets of Kowloon, but I finally found it and had my ticket in hand. I then had to decide what time I should get a cab to take me to the venue… with the level of traffic I had been in just a couple hours earlier, I decided I would give myself plenty of time and I left at 5:00 and this took about an hour on a trip that is normally just a half an hour. I got to the venue, which was actually right adjacent to the airport and in hindsight I could have stayed at a hotel at the airport and been much better off. Oh well, next time. The AsiaWorld Expo is absolutely HUGE! Besides the Metallica show, I think there were at least three other major events happening at the same time in other areas of the facility. Strange to see a bunch of metal heads along with conventioneers roaming the same halls.

The doors opened about 7:00 and I quickly found my seat. Metallica came on just about 8:30pm and opened up with one of their new songs.. a very hard song called Hardwired (one of my favorites off their new album). They followed up with Atlas, Rise! and then For Whom the Bell Tolls. I am not sure which song I enjoyed the most, but it was probably a toss up between Sad But True, Fade to Black and Seek & Destroy.. They played a total of 15 songs in their regular set and 3 in their encore, which consisted of Battery, Nothing Else Matters and finally Enter Sandman.

Getting out of the venue and back to the hotel was another adventure fighting a ton of people all trying to do the same thing as me….get out. After standing in the wrong taxi queue for about 30 minutes, I was finally able to locate the “correct” taxi queue which happened to be the most popular of course and proceed to wait another 45+ minutes before taking the hour long ride back to my hotel, but all in all, it wasn’t the worst after concert rush I have experienced and I got back to my hotel safely around 12:15.

By far, this will be one of the most memorable concerts I have ever been to, not only because it was an absolutely phenomenal show, but it was by luck that I was able to make it.

Set List

• Hardwired
• Atlas, Rise!
• For Whom the Bell Tolls
• Creeping Death
• The Unforgiven
• Now That We’re Dead
• Moth Into Flame
• Wherever I May Roam
• Confusion
• Halo on Fire
• Sad But True
• One
• Master of Puppets
• Fade to Black
• Seek & Destroy

Encore:

• Battery
• Nothing Else Matters
• Enter Sandman