Metallica just rocked Enter Sandman so hard for its most enthusiastic fans that their gig was seismically registered over one mile away.
It's the culmination of years of longing and – perhaps – marked Metallica's enduring classic meeting its most receptive audience ever. Stick with us on this one. It’s going to get a little complicated. But don’t worry, we got this…
The Virginia Tech American football team – known as the Hokies – are the team of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The Hokies play at the Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Yes. Virginia Tech (as the college is known for short) is so big that it has its own stadium. And not just any stadium, but the biggest in the state, able to house 66,000 for a game or gig… That’s because the campus itself spans 2,600 acres and is home to around 31,000 students.
I.e. This isn’t exactly jumpers for goalposts.
And what tune do the Hokies come out to at every home game? You guessed it – Enter Sandman by Metallica.
Why? Because 25 years ago – marking the grand reveal of their new giant video screen – fans were invited to pick what tune they’d like to play to show it off: Metallica’s Enter Sandman, Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Welcome to the Jungle or Sirius by The Alan Parsons project. (We’re thinking that the university’s resident Abba fan must have had the day off.)
Enter Sandman won the vote and – from that day ever since – every time the Hokies take to the pitch they run out after the tension-mounting, minute-long build into the blistering drop of Enter Sandman.
Snap forward to the present and Metallica are currently on their M72 world tour – usually a ‘no repeat’ tour to promote their 11th studio album 72 seasons in which the band play two gigs at each venue, appearing in the round and playing different sets each night. However for the American leg they’re playing one-offs wherever there’s sufficient demand.
And where did they play the gig on Wednesday night? That’s right - Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Virginia, the home of Virginia Tech’s football team. And what song were the resident (and one would assume predominantly Hokies) fans looking forward to?
You got it – Enter Sandman…
Thus they were able – after previously appearing in a video message nine years ago to mark the team’s coach’s retirement – to finally take their biggest hit ‘home’…
Yes. That’s right. It’s like Johnny Keating doing a gig at Everton’s Goodison Park and playing the theme from Z Cars… Or The Harry J All Stars turning up at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge and busting out Liquidator… You get the idea?
And – by all accounts – the band didn’t disappoint.
After the usual earth-quaking gig the band saved Enter Sandman til last, teasing the audience all night before letting it rip.
And according to the NYPost, the band busting out the Hokies favourite at their home ground received such an enthusiastic welcome that staff at The Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory (VTSO) a mile away were able to register the song’s arrival as a small earthquake thanks to the extra enthusiastic pogoing up and down that the fans use to greet the song.
VTSO Director Martin Chapman confirmed to FOX Weather that their seismograph registered the ground motion produced however, disappointingly, "While being dubbed the ‘Metallica Quake’ online, it actually posed no danger, and – being less than 1.0 on the Richter scale – was not assigned an offical rating."
Shame they didn’t get to try again the following night.
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