Do you still watch MetOnTour videos?

Only if it's a premier or a rare song.

Not unless it's a premier.

I got into this with Dan a few weeks back, about how boring MoT videos are now, and he basically said:
A) statistics show people don't want longer videos
B) cool stuff in the tuning room and Meet and Greets just isn't happening anymore.

I said video of the guys rehearsing the new songs would have been awesome. Video of the new VIP packages stuff would have been cool to see. Etc.. but got no reply.

Videos of Master of Puppets and One are easier to share on Facebook I guess, and generate more interest/clicks/revenue from the stuff we find interesting.

This was another reason I left Judas, there's nothing to talk about over there, because until Metallica roll around to hot city, there's nothing interesting going on with the band. Tours aren't worth following anymore.

There has been a pretty steep decline in everything Metallica related since 2013. Yes, the album was pretty good. But lets be honest, its not a classic.

Time has taken its toll.

Yes. Lets mention some wierd stuff:

- Kirks absence
- Playing US national anthems 1345 times poorly
- Lords Of Summer Demo/First pass
- Making Livemetallica more shit
- Screwing up MetOnTour
- Continuing with stupid beach balls.
- Keep playing nostalgic setlists.
- Paid Meet and Greets with moronic museums.

More?

I would put it different, but it covers the same stuff.

- Making greatest hits setlists the standard setlist for every show, swapping the occasional song here and there.
- Weird corporate collaborations with sports teams, fashion labels and other musicians.
- Dropping all behind the scenes web content in favour or snappier clips to share on social media.
- Dropping a strong online community in favour of a social media style "like" generator.
- Dropping the fan club.
- Kirk's technique and seemingly interest in the band regressing.
- Kirk's absence from the creation of the new album.
- Hetfield completely stepping away from anything to do with fans that he is not obligated to be a part of.
- Hetfield's seemingly lack of interest in performing. He looks bored on stage, going through the motions.
- Generating as much money as possible from fans by introducing crazy priced VIP packages.
- Playing stadium shows instead of arenas.
- Large gaps in between tour legs.
- Barely any promotion of the tour.

If they didn't just release a new album, I'd say it feels like a genuine wind down of their career and that they'd have a couple of years left, tops.

Anyway, looking forward to some excitement when the tour eventually rolls around here, but more importantly, I'm hanging for the remaining Deluxe remaster box sets.

You nailed it, yepsure .

Its a complete ripoff, @thesteelcurtain. Quality control is gone.

Yes. Mike probably has a "Shit" filter in PooTools.

I have said this many times before. Just grab an USB stick, plug it into Big Micks mixing desk and you have a straight soundboard recording. Sounds a million times better, saves time and costs fuck all.

It probably all went down something like this:

Late 2013. Meeting with Q-Prime like in SKOM.

Hetfield saying he needs a break, they've hit his goal of playing all 5 continents after playing Antarctica and now he wants a couple of years off to spend with his family. Kirk says something like "Me too goddamit".

That guy from Q-Prime says, in his usual condescending tone: Just give us another 4-5 years. We'll put together a plan to make it as easy and as painless as possible. Make a new album, play a few shows. We'll do some deals and tweak a few things to make sure we bring in as much as we can so you can take a break and your families will be comfortable.

Kirk says "I CANT MAKE ANOTHER FUCKING ALBUM GODDAMIT", Lars says not to worry, him and James will push something out. Hetfield says something about not rushing and he'll do an album only at his own pace. Lars grows a beard and a pony tail.

Q-Prime says ok lets look at expenses. Fan Club is costing X amount per year, and all these MetOnTour pricks are employed full time to make a few videos and live mixes? Because of Obamacare we have to pay them shitloads of money. Let's drop them down to one day a week each so we don't have to pay them health care. They can still put out some basic stuff, just at a slower pace. It doesn't bring any revenue anyway. We'll drop the fan club, its just a money pit. We'll find the company that does VIP packages for Justin Bieber and we'll get a similar program set up. Lars and Rob high five.

James says he's sick of touring. Kirk says "FUCKING HELL MAN IM NOT TOURING MY GUITARS KEEP GOING OUT OF TUNE GODDAMIT". Q-Prime say, don't worry, we'll set up some outdoor dates, you just fly in, play and fly out. No more rehearsing old songs, playing exhaustive indoor dates that all look the same. And who cares if your guitar goes out of tune every song Kirk, we've already got their coin, and we'll just get Mike to correct it all in his one shift per week...by the time the show is out everyone would have forgotton about how bad you sounded anyway?

They all laugh. Then announce the first tour dates.

actually now that i read this, i do think a big factor is the fact that they lost a SHITTON of money in just two years. obviously the guys will feel like crap and they will need to cut costs a good bit, so quality of the whole "metallica machine" suffers. (not shitting on metallica and their team, they do LOADS of work for the fans. but the overall quality for everything about this tour has dropped greatly compared to the TBA anniversary tour, or 2013, or world magnetic...)

still so so strange. OMG, james wants the new metallica album to come sooner than 8 years!
ok, so they can get bored of it less than a month after its release just like HTSD? the fuck.

and did anyone see that they changed the enhanced experience packages and james did the meet and greet? people there said it wasnt as long as the traditional club m&g but they still went along, signed stuff and had a short chat with the people there. still a m&g.
i dont know if he did the free club one too but if not, im not too hot about that. if this his choice or management or whatever said get your ass out here we cant have these fuckers complaining or people wont buy it!

It's all obviously just a long-term plan to drive a few members of a knockoff Metallica board insane.

Summed up perfectly.

The whole "they do it because they want people to buy the dvds" argument doesn't hold water with me either. When DVD's come out you see tons of people saying it's doctored and fake (a lot of it is obviously) because of the livemet recordings and therefore they totally dismiss the dvd performance. They think the band actually sounds so bad when you are there, which isn't the case at all. They DO have a massive sound live, some of which is captured on DVD's, but selling your band short just so you can get people to buy DVD's doesn't make sense to me. In fact I'm willing to bet they probably make more money from livemet releases than putting together a live DVD. Not to mention most people are going to watch it on Youtube anyway, which is also a place you can listen to pretty much ANY show from the St. Anger tour until now from a livemet release. Why would they want it to sound shit if so much of it is out there?

I could totally understand if the service was free and they just said "Hey it's going to sound like shit, but here you go..." but when you start charging more than a professionally mixed album it gets weird to me. If they can spend the time to go through some performances and edit out the mistakes, can't they just add a little reverb? It's not like we are asking for a black album sound. Just something that doesn't sound like a guy slapping two pancakes together. Hell there was a period a few years ago where the sound was okay, I don't understand how it keeps getting progressively worse.

Hell even the Ktulu performance that was uploaded today is a good example. When a lot of us heard the phone recordings of it we were praising just how fucking good it was. But if you listened to the video uploaded today as a casual fan you would think "Jesus Christ, they want me to pay $300.00 for a floor ticket to hear this?".

Or 6 if you want to go with Eurasia. Either way, yepsure obviously failed geography. And possibly geology.