Attending the Metallica Concert in Budapest
I had the privilege to attend the Metallica 2-day concert in Budapest at the Puskás Arena. The concert had Gojira, Pantera, Knocked Loose and Avatar (Swedish) as supporting bands. Experiencing this concert is a dream come true experience for me. I have been listening to Metallica since I was 14yo. I feel very proud to have seen them live 🤘. They still play really well, so many of their songs are too damn good. I am grateful of experiencing something which cannot be experienced living in India. I am talking about attending a large scale concert without chaos, hunger, thirst, lack of hygiene and possibly danger to life.
For both the days I had a seat in the VIP section. I was able to get the VIP seat ticket from the official ticketing website for this concert. I didn’t want to get a resale ticket. I got the ticket in Sep 2025 when all the other tickets were sold out. Not only the tickets for the Budapest concert, but all over the world tickets were sold out. The seat was a bit far away from the stage. I was pretty sure that I wanted a assigned seat instead of the general admission ticket. The general admission ticket is tempting to get but I know that it would have been very tough to go through the concert in so much discomfort because I definitely would have tried to be at the front row. Even tough I could not see the band members very clearly, it was worth it to be part of the concert. The feeling of “I was there” was worth attending for me. Seeing Metallica play live my favourite songs is like going back in time. These guys are from the 80s! And I got to see them play live is quite amazing.
Organizing good converts is for sure in the best interests of the Music industry but they are ridding on the City infrastructure to be able to handle the crowd and scale. In EU specially the access to concerts via public transport is quite a feat. Forty thousand people entering the concert and leaving without chaos. For the VIP seats I had access to a constantly running bar which served chilled beer at affordable prices. Now this is something really nice. In India the prices would have equal to buying gold bricks. Everything you get in a concert in India is like god send, like having a beer on the international space station.
Day 1 (11th June) began with the performance by Avatar. I had never listen to the band, they have a carnival vibe. They do clean vocals which was a plus. The performance for sure entertaining but the music was not really my choice. Then came the legendary metal band Pantera with the OG (remaining) band members. I was hyped up to listen to them because I have known the band since I was a teenager, although I don’t listen to them a lot. There are just a handful of tracks by Pantera which I like. But I got to see Zakk Wylde playing for them! It was interesting to see Phil Anselmo perform barefoot. After Pantera there was a 1 hour break. Then came Metallica and they started with Creeping Death and I was blown away. That is one of my all time favourite songs. Song after song they were nailing it! All the songs on the setlist I liked except Fuel. Seek and destroy and Orion really hit me, both are my favourite.
Day 2 (13th June) began with Knocked Loose. I listened to them just because of this concert and found them to be interesting. But I would not pick them a lot since the vocals are too loud for me. The singing style is mostly shouting which I don’t prefer. Although the sound is heavy which makes it nice to listen to sometimes. Then came Gojira! I really like listening to Gojira which also I found from the concert. I knew Gojira existed before the concert as well. But somehow I had a very harsh image for them in my mind like black metal. But they are the kind of metal I like. They have clean vocal parts in the songs as well. The bonus are the riffs like in Amazonia, Mia Culpa and Stranded. Gojira’s performance was super. They played all the popular songs! After 1 hour break Metallica took over the stage again. This time they opened with Whiplash which is not one of my songs. It is part of Metallica songs list which I never listen to. The highlight for me were Ride the Lightning and Enter Sandman. I did the maximum head banging on these songs which really costed my neck for the next 4 days. For sure worth it 🙂↕️