LARS ULRICH SAYS METALLICA FRONTMAN JAMES HETFIELD WAS “LIVID” THAT HIS MIC DID NOT WORK DURING GRAMMY APPEARANCE
Page Six of the New York Post reports:
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich says lead singer James Hetfield was “livid” over the technical mishap that left him without a working microphone for the band’s Grammy duet with Lady Gaga.
Hetfield’s verses weren’t audible for the first half of the Sunday performance of Moth Into Flame. He eventually moved over to share Gaga’s microphone for the remainder of the song.
Ulrich told Grammy host James Corden on Corden’s The Late Late Show that Hetfield was furious about the snafu. He said Hetfield is normally a “chill guy,” but it “was not a lot of fun” in the dressing room after the set.
Ulrich said the band “fought through it” and some people told him afterward that even with the mistake, the performance was “great television.”
source: pagesix.com
As I stated in Dana’s previous report on this (agreeing with Dana), I don’t think Ga Ga worked as an accomplice to Metallica’s brand here. It’s about presentation. It would have been better if she’d just stood at her microphone Ozzy-like, belting out the tune. The whole dancing around waving her butt thing was not metal (nice though, in a context like Poker Face). Lita Ford would have pulled this off better and Doro Pesch would have killed it.
Furthermore, I think the dead mic really threw Hetfield off, and so the whole band. The number was frentically delivered, seemed rushed, and too trebly, as if the bottom end had somehow got mixed out.