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Anyone at the 02 arena on saturday to see Metallica play their final dates of their ‘world magnetic’ tour? Its good to see Metallica playing almost all of the new album, as the St anger tour was just them playing the classic songs, with nothing new.

Metallica’s latest album ‘Death magnetic’, has been compared to their metal classic ‘Master of puppets’, probably because it sounds like the closest thing to it. Death magnetic just doesnt have the technicality of ‘Justice for all’ or the rawness of ‘Kill ‘em all’. Opening tracks ‘that was just worth life’ and ‘end of the line’ feel as if they’d decided to update ‘Battery’ and the song ‘Master of puppets’ for a modern audience. The same with instrumental track ’suicide and redemption’ and ‘my apocalypse’ -you cant shake the feeling that they wanted another ‘Orion’ and ‘damage inc’ to stick onto the album. The album surprised alot of people who were ready to to write it off- myself included.

After a powerful set by fellow San Francisco metallers Machine head, Metallica come and launch straight into ‘that was just your life’, and ‘end of the line’, smashing our skulls with the first two Death magnetic tracks, before bringing in three tracks from ‘And Justice for all’. Cleary aware of the fact its ‘Justice’s’ 20 year anniversary? I was just grateful for all nine minutes of the album’s title track, epic fan favourite ‘one’ and the brilliant ‘Harvester of sorrow’.

One surprise in the set list was ‘fight fire with fire’, from the album ‘Ride the lightning’, a song very rarely brought out live, and the trip to London to see them play that song was worth it alone. Metallica played a total of six tracks from the new album- and they were clearly relishing the chance to play the new material. With lars bouncing around on the kit with added ‘oomph’ and Hetfield having the energy of a 20 year old, running to all four mics onstage at any given time. The encore we all want sees them bring out Motorhead’s ‘Overkill’, and then two classics from the first album -’Hit the lights’ and ‘Seek and destroy’.

I last saw them at Download 2006 when they playedall of the master of puppets album, an amazing set which I didnt think they would ever top. I was wrong, and glad of it, Metallica proved with Death magnetic they could still write fast aggressive music, and tonight proved (to me anyway) they can still deliver a set full of surprises and fist pounding metal.

If only the trains had been working that night -Id say this was a great gig -would others who were there agree? Thinking about holding a riverside event near the O2 or want to keep up with London events?

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