There’s a second in Metallica, the brand new three-song live performance video Apple launched for the Vision Pro yesterday, the place Metallica lead singer James Hetfield is kneeling on the sting of the stage, engaged with a single fist-pumping viewers member. Hetfield leans in to inside inches of his face as he and the fan scream, earlier than the singer stands and strikes on. The highlight follows Hetfield away however the digicam stays put, lingering because the concert-goer reacts to what simply occurred. He falls again in opposition to the group after which pitches ahead, steadying himself on the stage, then buries his face in his elbow, crying.
In numerous methods, Metallica is like every other live performance video, incessantly reducing between photographs of the band members as they trot across the stage, others of the followers, each in closeups and in flyover photographs that factors straight down at them from above. (There are so many smartphones!) The roughly 25-minute video from a Mexico City present options three Metallica songs — “Whiplash,” “One,” and “Enter Sandman” — interspersed with documentary-style footage and voiceover from Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, bassist Robert Trujillo, and guitarist Kirk Hammett.
Apple’s 180-degree video format, mixed with excessive manufacturing values and the Vision Pro’s sharp shows, finally ends up including numerous additional taste. That second with Hetfield and the fan is already superb live performance video course, however this presentation offers a visceral, emotional heft that I feel could be arduous to seize in 2D. The feeling that I used to be virtually there because the digicam tracked behind a cigar-smoking, life-sized-to-me Hetfield on his method to the stage made me assume, “Oh wow, he’s tall.“ I bought chills when “One” began (I’m a Person Of A Certain Age; I can’t assist it), however I may virtually really feel my ageing ft and decrease again begin to ache as Hammett stretched the tune out with a prolonged solo and the group, which now had nothing to sing alongside to, misplaced a few of its power. The viewers nonetheless went nuts for “Enter Sandman” after that, in fact.
The Vision Pro’s Apple Immersive assortment has gotten higher in the previous few months with the discharge of movies like The Weeknd: Open Hearts and the scripted fictional brief movie Submerged. Both are nice, however though I’ve loved the remainder of the catalog, it usually looks like its content material is serving the immersive format, not the opposite means round. Metallica, however, isn’t only a good immersive video; it’s an excellent live performance video, and it units a bar that Apple ought to attempt to maintain assembly.
