Metallica Paris 2003 - All Recto

[afu]

https://youtu.be/lWcTqWSa5gk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MbNrU8GGFY

The new album "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Metallica!" has Hetfield and Hamster using nothing but Rectifiers. It looks like James is using 2 at a time and Kirk is using 4 at a time. I imagine James has Triple Recs and Kirk has Dual Recs. I watched some other dates from the European St Anger tour. Some shows have Marks and a Triple Rec on Hetfield's side, but this show wasn't one of them. So, if for no other reason, this release is notable for a relatively uncommon backline for Metallica.

 

[Elpelotero]

I don't know...A lot of times that's just for show on the stage, when in reality they have their racks off stage. None of those cabs have a mic attached to feed a signal to the house. I could be wrong, but just my observations.

 

[afu]

Ha. I didn't notice that.

 

[afu]

I thought about it later... They have isolated speakers miked almost all of the time and rely on their engineers for PA and monitors. You could still be right about racks behind the wall of Mesa, but this show was one of three in a single day. That would have put their entire European setup in France, since they transport 3 different identical rigs at a time. Apparently, they do that to ensure the equipment gets to the next place on time and it gives their techs time to go over everything on the day of a performance. 3 shows in a day might call for simplicity, but really, I don't know. Having the heads out with backups makes me think they were blending a pair of amps and that the big wall on Kirk's side was more about aesthetic to match James' and Rob's stacks, but that he was still using two of them.

The Damage, Inc. clip sure sounds like a Recto when James is playing.

 

[Bullen]

The rectos on stage were just for show. James ran one of his 4 Triaxis preamps (set to IIC+ with a custom Mesa 5 band eq) into a Strategy 400 poweramp and a Diezel VH4 ch 3 together. Not sure if he was still using the Roland JC120 back then or if he had started using the Line 6 modelled version for his clean sound. He also blended in one of the other Triaxis in one of the clean modes with the JC120. And Kirk ran 2ch rackmount rectos and a Triaxis/Strategy 400 together back then. Some of the recto cabs were used for onstage sounds but they used iso cabs backstage for the PA.

So in short:

James crunch - Triaxis with custom eq/Strategy 400 and a Diezel Vh4 running together. Boosted with od pedals for leads.
James clean - JC120 (or Line 6) and Triaxis/Strategy 400 running together
Kirk crunch - dual racto
Kirk clean - dual racto and Triaxis/Strategy 400 running together
Kirk Lead - dual racto and Triaxis/Strategy 400 running together