Metallica Hosts 12 Bass Players At Website Kick-Off Party

NEW YORK (Metallica Official Website) - Metallica hosted a re-launch party for its website last week, and it turned out to be part Fanatic, part Gong Show, and part karaoke night.

Grand prize winners from a contest held on the website got to take a tour of the band's hometown of San Francisco, dine with the band, and take in a private show by Metallica themselves. Other winners were treated to a barbecue at a "party zone," reports the metallica.com webmaster.

The metallica.com gala started off at a San Francisco hotel where drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett, and guitarist/singer James Hetfield picked up grand-prize winners via limousine and took them on a pre-dinner tour of some of Metallica's old San Francisco haunts.

The band and contest winners then settled into headquarters where 12 bass contestants played along to Metallica CDs, fully aware they could be halted by a gong--just like The Gong Show--if they were no good. Two winners, Elena Repetto and Andrew Boyer, were chosen as winners and each received an ESP bass. Repetto got to jam out "Seek & Destroy," while Boyer played "Creeping Death" with the band.

Metallica then got producer/fill-in-bassist Bob Rock to come up, and the combo performed a set consisting of "Commando," "Hit The Lights," "Leper Messiah," "No Remorse," a version of the working-titled "Dead Kennedy Rolls," and a cover of the Misfits' "Die Die My Darling." During the set the band also played "Metallica karaoke," as several fans came up to sing vocals.