METALLICA and THAT bootleg.

And so at the age of 17 I’d recently finished High School, and with a notably underwhelming C-average I was adrift in life. I could easily blame my lack of achievement on the fact that I was socially ostracized at School – but the reality was that I just didn’t apply myself. In many ways I was proud to be the dark loner with my bedraggled shoulder-length hair, flannelette shirt and black leather jacket. I was that kid who didn’t fit in with the beautiful people and the popular clique – the late 1980’s was the era of vanity and conformity – and my presence simply made the room look untidy, and made the guests uncomfortable.
But fuck them all. I had something none of those posers had. I had METALLICA. They were the centre of my universe and their music was the one thing which gave me the strength to swim against the tide.
And so when the guy behind the counter of Adelaide’s only real Heavy Metal music outlet – Veranda Music – told me the news that Metallica were coming to Adelaide I was overwhelmed with excitement. “Tickets just went on sale!” he said.
I’d signed the Justice For Adelaide petition previously in Hindley Street’s “Hot Rock” store – which was practically the only destination in town where you could buy really cool Heavy Metal T-shirts, leather jackets and studs – and the place where I regularly got HM band patches for my denim jacket whenever I could scrape up a few dollars.
I immediately headed for the nearest ATM. The meagre unemployment allowance I got from Social Welfare was supposed to last me the entire week and this was only Monday. I was still living with my parents, who were cutting me no slack and expecting that I should act responsibly, cut my hair, and get a proper job – whilst in the meantime manage my own petty cash. None-the-less I entered the withdrawal amount of $40 in to the ATM and held my breathe – and finally it dispensed the cash, along with a balance statement of 90 cents!
I went and bought my Metallica ticket, with just enough money left over for some lunch and my train fare home.
I knew that if I’d actually asked my parents they would not approve of me going to the concert – especially with TV tabloid-journalism Current Affairs programs like “Page One” running a prime-time sensationalized beat-up on Metallica. How they were killing the youth of America with “Fade To Black” – and warning my parents that Metallica were about to instigate the slaughter here too in May. I still remember how “Page One” looped the “die” chant from Creeping Death over and over, and showed images of mesmerized teens fist-pumping the air.
But it was too late now. I’d bought the ticket and I was GOING. End of discussion.
And whilst I had no real career prospects at the time, the one thing I could do was WRITE – and I’d begun contributing to a local freebie music magazine called Rip It Up.
They never paid me a single cent for any of my work – although they happily accepted my record reviews – and even asked me to come in and do the odd phone interview occasionally. To be honest, I didn’t really care about getting paid – for me it was about experience and a foot inside the door of the music scene, which heralded the opportunity for me to interview people like Charlie Benante from Anthrax, and – believe it or not – Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull! And so whilst Ian was trying to tell me about a new album he had coming out (“Rock Island”) I was constantly steering the conversation back to the (then) recent upset of the 1989 Grammy Awards! He wound it up by telling me: “To be voted the winner by your peers is a heartwarming accolade – SHATTERED by the griping reaction of the media that Metallica should have won because they were the ‘HOT’ band of the year. But we won because we have given more than 20 years to this industry and probably won’t ever get another shot at winning a Grammy Award. Metallica are a young band and they will have plenty more opportunities to win one. You shouldn’t feel so sorry for them…”
I mention here my contributions to Rip It Up Magazine because it formed the basis of a plot I hatched a few days after buying my Metallica concert ticket. I decided to turn up on the doorstep of the local PolyGram office (I’d scavenged some posters from them once before!) and asked if I could speak to their AR manager. A lovely lady named Jenny came out from her office and asked me what I was enquiring about.
I launched into my pre-rehearsed diatribe about how I was an aspiring “journalist” – and how I was “associated” with Rip It Up Magazine, and that I wanted to write a feature on Metallica. “Is there any chance I can meet with them when they come to Adelaide?” I asked naively – “Will there be a backstage press meeting?”
I can not say for sure what Jenny actually made of this charade – but she was very polite and diplomatically explained to me that she really had no influence on whether the band would meet with press before the show. “If we do get any passes I will keep you in mind” she said tactfully.
Over the following weeks I stopped in at the PolyGram Office regularly and reminded Jenny that I was still keen to “interview” Metallica, until about a week before the show – when she dealt me the devastating blow. “Unfortunately I’ve been told that there will be no meet and greet party at the concert, and only around half a dozen passes will be allocated for specific people.”
My heart sank. I knew it had been a LONG SHOT anyway – but it didn’t make the news any less disappointing. And so I resigned myself to just enjoying the gig.
And then something happened which turned my world on its axis. I passed by the Rip It Up office a few days before the Metallica show to drop off some random submissions for the magazine.
The prim receptionist Amy – who usually (politely) treated me with the same distain and contempt I’d received in the school yard – handed me a letter. I’d never gotten ANY mail via Rip It Up before, and my brain began to spin whilst thinking of all the people I’d possibly pissed off with my often undeservedly sarcastic music reviews. The envelope was officially printed PolyGram stationery – and I suddenly had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. In my pathetic immaturity I had torn Bon Jovi to shreds in my review of their most recent single “I’ll Be There For You” – and said some quite frankly reprehensible and possibly slanderous things about them. I nervously opened the envelope and took out the letter.
‘Dear Brendan – we would be pleased if you would be our guest at Thebarton Theatre on 3rd May at 7:00pm. Please meet by the stage door. Kind Regards, Jenny’.
WTF?
I felt a huge sense of anticipation on the night of the show. I arrived early with my cousins Stuart and Dave – we were three Heavy Metal brothers-in-arms – and this was going to be the biggest night of our young lives! Unfortunately I had to part company with them when we got inside – and I headed for the stage door.
Jenny was waiting there and she handed me a backstage pass. It was a very small group of 6 or 8 people, and I recognized the guy from Veranda Music, and the guy from Hot Rock. I didn’t know the others but assumed that they had some legitimate reason for being there. We were ushered backstage where Lars Ulrich was already waiting for us…
He was Mr Public Relations in every sense and welcomed us warmly. The conversation was so surreal I cannot even recall exactly how it went – except that the introductions were done by Jenny, and I was the last person standing in the semi-circle around Lars. As those who were involved with orchestrating the petition were named and presented, Lars gushed about how much the band appreciated the loyalty of their fans, and what an amazing job the petitioners had done. And then finally when it got around to me, Lars abruptly cut Jenny off and said “Wait. Let me guess – this is the kid who scammed a pass?” and then looked at me and said “I don’t know how you do it – but every fucking place we play there’s always one kid who somehow manages to get in.”
At this point the ice is broken and there’s some free-flowing Q&A going on with everyone else. I was pulling my records out of my bag so that I could ask Lars to sign them, when I felt someone put a hand on my shoulder and lean around me to try and see what records I was holding. It was freakin’ KIRK HAMMETT! He’s softly spoken but very friendly and he takes the ‘Eye Of The Beholder’ from me. “Can you guess which eye is mine?” he asks. I quickly try to compare his eyes to the record cover but he turns his head away. “Don’t look! It’s easy!” he says. “Errr… that one?” I asked him, as I pointed to a particular eye on the cover.
“Yeah! I’m the only one with brown eyes, right?”
James arrives and he starts to heckle the lady wearing the Bon Jovi T-shirt! I didn’t know who she was – but I’ve since learned that she was actually the wife of the DJ who instigated the Metallica petition. Hetfield was pleasant and co-operative although he didn’t stay for too long – eventually excusing himself to go and check on the set-up.
So far I had managed to get my Master Of Puppets, Kill ‘Em All and Eye Of The Beholder records signed but still Jason Newsted is nowhere to be seen. I’m looking all around until finally I spotted him a little way away – and so I strategically slipped off from the group and chased after him. I just needed to meet him and ask him to sign the Eye OTB record. He’s obliging but obviously pre-occupied with something else (he didn’t really seem to want to hang around) but he also managed to sign my ‘Kill ‘Em All’ LP before I could stop him! I don’t mind – but I wasn’t actually going to ASK him to sign something he didn’t play on! I thanked him and then allowed him to get back to what he was doing.
A few days later I received yet another incredible gift from PolyGram and Metallica – a magnificently fully signed copy of the …And Justice For All LP.
Our small meet and greet seemed to be all over way too quickly and my head was reeling. Unbelievably I’d just spent one-on-one time with my biggest idols and it was an event which will no doubt stay with me until I die.
But I wasn’t finished yet. NoSireeBob.
My next objective was to record the show with a small Walkman-type cassette machine I had smuggled into the venue – which I’d borrowed from a friend. Once I started I had to be very mindful to flip the tape over before it completely ran out or else I would miss chunks of certain songs due to the duration of the unrecordable lead-in part of the cassette tape. My feet were hurting because I’d stashed extra blank cassettes and AA batteries inside my shoes – so that they weren’t found by the door security when we went in. Back in those days recording devices were prohibited inside concert venues. My back-up plan was – that should the Walkman be discovered at the Security post – I would attempt to convince them just to take the batteries out of it… (with the covert spares still hidden in my shoes!) Fortunately it didn’t come to that.
I was also aware that if I didn’t find a discreet way to hold the recorder above my shoulder height that the sound would probably be muffled and unlistenable. Somehow I pulled it off but I was concerned that there was a serious flaw in my recording.
When the opening chords of ‘Fade To Black’ rang out, a girl standing nearby began to scream and cry hysterically. Tears were streaming down her face and she was hyperventilating between shrill wails. I couldn’t really move away from her and I just crossed my fingers that she’d shut up soon. Every time I breathed a sigh of relief she would start up again! There was no way that this wasn’t going to negatively impact my recording.
Yet years later when I listen back to this concert I’m always reminded of how palpable the connection with the band was that night – how they touched our souls – and when I hear that girl’s anguished shrieking now I literally get the chills and my eyes well-up, as I re-experience the powerfully emotional effect Metallica had on all of us. They had come to play for US exclusively because we had asked them to – and it was an incredible experience.
The bootleg triple-album JUSTICE FOR ADELAIDE – which resulted from my tapes – has become somewhat legendary – not at all because of the fidelity of sound (or lack of!), but because this was a gig which was particularly emotive, engaging and almost spiritual. As a community of mostly outcasts, degenerates and ruffians we were banded together to connect with an answered prayer – and there was no denying that electricity filled the air that night.
And just in case you are wondering… I had literally NO IDEA how or who could actually MAKE a bootleg record. I was just a stupid teenager. What I can tell you is that my ambition got the better of me (once again!) and I just decided that it had to be done.
Yes it is true that I designed the gatefold jacket – a mock-up using scissors and paste – and I cut the Metallica logo out by hand using a razor blade. I hand-typed the short journal entry on the inside the gatefold which explained how the show came to happen – which in turn helped to spread the legend of the “petition” show to Metallica fans worldwide. I sacrificed a number of the HM magazines I had collected in order to make the collage and the cover. I made hand-written “Big Bren Production” notes which included a track listing, sketchy label designs and any stuff I couldn’t do with my own primitive resources. I collected it all up together with a copy of my tapes, and took the package to one of the record stores in the city.
With the benefit of hindsight, I still can’t believe how naïve I was to think such things were even possible – and how impossible it seems now that all of this came true. Yet through unwavering blind belief and hope – it did. I was only 17 at the time and I created a tangible tribute to what was at that time the most important thing – and to one of the most memorable events – in my entire life. Without Metallica I probably would have ended up as just a downtrodden victim of life.
So when I passed my mock-up bootleg across the counter of the record store and asked the guy “Can you get this to the bootleg people for me please?” I was naively oblivious to what a far-fetched and possibly misguided notion this was.
The guy told me that he had no idea of how to do that – but I didn’t believe him – and so I insisted upon leaving it all there. And I’d almost forgotten about it altogether (or at least accepted the fact that I had been deluding myself!) – until one day much later – whilst back shopping for records – I was awestruck by something I instantly recognized: my JUSTICE FOR ADELAIDE jacket! Only this one had REAL RECORDS in it!