TAIT Creates Custom Staging Concepts for Metallica Tour

Metallica has kicked off the next leg of its tour in Mexico City, with elaborate staging concepts created by the team at TAIT. The band will perform eight shows in Mexico before heading to San Francisco and onward to Canada. The Vancouver shows, on August 24 and 25, will be filmed for the upcoming film Metallica 3D, to be released in 2013.

Tait supplied aull video stage (40m long, 15mwide, 1.5m high) on the field of play, surrounded by the crowd, as well as a 9m "Lady Justice" statue, which is built in in its entirety, in the course of one number via an overhead crane system, as the band blasts "Justice for All," the statue collapses into pieces. In addition, four 10m hydraulic towers, fitted with 12 moving lights, are placed at each stage corner. The towers rise vertically during the show and then crash down during a destruction sequence. Also, 12 automated crosses with internal LED rise during show.

Overhead, Tait has provided a large scenic electric chair (5mtall, 2m wide, 2m deep), which is flown in by two winches. Also Four tesla coils, held by winches, generate lightning bolts (10V) that fly across stage and strike the electric chair. This is the first time a tesla coil effect of this scale has been used in front of a live audience, the company says. A large scenic toilet appears from overhead on winches; a scenic hand holding a sword rises from the toilet. Ten large coffins (20' long, 8'wide), housing video tiles and moving lights, fly over the crowd, powered by high-speed chain motors. Two scenic trusses are dropped onto stage during the destruction sequence. The trusses are made from polycarbonate cores with a hard coat top and scenically painted. All movement (apart from the coffins) are controlled by FTSI's Navigator automation system.

All of the TAIT elements travel in 15 standard 53' trucks (14 for scenic elements, one for staging).