I don't think I've ever written this much about one GRAMMYs telecast before, but there was a ridiculous amount of metal news coming out the 59th annual award show.
On the pre-show, as Megadeth won the Best Metal Performance, and the house band decided to play Metallica's "Master of Puppets." Dave Mustaine had the last laugh about the situation, though. Gojira left the show empty-handed, as did Disturbed. Everybody who showed up made sure to put on their fanciest attire (save for Fieldy of Korn).
But the biggest controversy from the night was for the much-anticipated performance of Metallica and Lady Gaga performing "Moth Into Flame." You can see the entire video of the performance here. If you've seen the performance, you know that James Hetfield's mic was not on for the beginning of the song, leading to some embarrassment, and James Hetfield seemed pissed by the end of the show:
I don't think James Hetfield enjoyed that #GRAMMYs performance https://t.co/U11FQm84W2 pic.twitter.com/SCpDkWCxWA
— Metal Injection (@metalinjection) February 13, 2017
Well, TMZ tracked down the cause of the problem. Apparently, at the last second a sound guy pulled the mic plug:
Sources connected to the production tell us everything was fine right before the "Moth Into Flame" collab was about to begin. Gaga and the band's line check, right before the performance, went off without a hitch.
However, between the mic check and their act … a wire under the stage got unplugged. We're told a stagehand did it by accident, but the damage was done — Hetfield's mic was dead through most of the performance. They eventually fixed the unplugged wire with seconds left in the song. We reached out the Grammys, but no word back yet.
This is truly surprising because in all the years I've seen Metallica, the band always perform without problems. Perhaps that's why James was not in the best of moods at the end of the gig.
Ultimately, I think everybody made the best of the situation.
One Metal Injection junkie seemed to have find an exclusive photo of the stagehand in action:
