Metallica’s Rolling Stones Tour Stories: Eye Contact & Bum Wiggles

Some band tours match up better than others.  There are also absolutely awful concert tour matchups (see below).  Metallica and The Rolling Stones fall somewhere in the middle where expectation and reality don't quite meet.  These are a couple of Metallica's Rolling Stones tour stories from James and Lars:

Back in the '90s, I was on a Detroit rock station, and James Hetfield came in for an interview with Ted Nugent. I STILL remember James Hetfield talking about being side-stage for a Rolling Stones concert.  He said that during the concert, The Rolling Stones' support staff had cues on Mick's prompter, including DANCE MOVES like "sexy bum wiggle."  This left an impression on James... and me.

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I recently saw an interview Lars Ulrich gave on Bill Mahers' Club Random and it reminded me of James' story.  Lars's memory was quite a bit less humorous and more disheartening.  Metallica opened for The Rolling Stones on a couple of shows back in 2005. In the course of the conversation, Lars revealed that Metallica was told not to "make eye contact" with Mick Jagger or to "talk to him."  According to Lars there was a silver lining, "I always go say hello to our support act.  I look them in the eye. I ask them if there's anything they need.  It's a human thing; if somebody comes out and plays on a Metallica stage, I want them to feel at home."

Who knows if Mick was even aware that his staff was giving out these instructions... or if he would have made a different choice in 2023 than he did in 2005.  That is the better part of 20 years of growing as an individual.  Either way, Mick would not be the only one.  I heard from co-workers when I was in Washington D.C. that Paul Simon's people gave the same "do not make contact" advisory.  When I escorted backstage winners to meet Van Halen, a handler came out and gave VERY SPECIFIC instructions to our group.  We were told not to shake Eddie Van Halen's hand too firmly.  The handler was extremely serious about this matter.

Bottom line... and I quote Jim Morrison, "People are strange."  It's near impossible to know if the messages we receive are coming from the artist or from the management.  I think the timeline also matters.  To say someone is the "same person" at 20-40-60 etc is ridiculous.  I'd like to think we all grow and learn as we age.  If we don't, that's the real low point in anyone's life, in my opinion.

New tours are seemingly announced every week. Oftentimes, those tours feature outstanding multi-act lineups and other great supporting acts.

With that in mind, we can't help but think about all of the strange opening acts and headliner combos in rock history, and there have been some doozies.

A great example of this was the Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto concert in 2003. The show was organized as an economic boom for Toronto, which was hit pretty badly by the SARS outbreak. (It's also why the show is affectionately known as SARSStock. Over 450,000 people attended the show, which featured the headlining lineup of The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Rush, The Guess Who...and Justin Timberlake.

Bookers and promoters didn't think about how a predominantly rock crowd would react to Timberlake. It's a memory that still sticks with Timberlake, who reflected on it during a February 2020 appearance on BBC's The Graham Norton Show.

"You would think Canadians are historically peaceful people, ... It was a bit of a blur," recalled Timberlake, who at the time had just started his solo career. "I just remember saying to the band before we went on stage, 'I don't think this is going to go well.' Little did I know how bad it was going to go."

So, how bad was it? People threw bottles of urine at him!

Jokingly, Timberlake said, "I still have a lot of trauma from this incident. After the first song, the host of the festival comes out and [tries to wave me off stage,] and I'm like, 'No, man! I'm staying out here! We're doing this!'"

Fans then continued to throw the bottles of urine at him, but things eventually calmed down. Timberlake said, "After [the second song of the set] either one of two things happened: Either they ran out of nerve, because they knew I was going to stay there, or they ran out of urine."

Fortunately, no bottles of urine were involved in the following five examples of strange opening act and headliner combos. However, they all are very interesting and almost baffling that they even happened. Enjoy!