Metallica’s Elemental Truths

In the fickle world of popular music, it takes a lot of work to win fans who’ll stand by their band. Metallica put in years of down-in-the-trenches touring and no-holds-barred playing before it broke into the mainstream.

Since then, the Bay Area quartet has taken quite a few liberties with the thrashy metal premise it perfected, indulging in bouts of burly balladry, pop flourishes, country-isms and glam rock posturing. Though the quartet has drawn fire from purists for veering off the metal straight and narrow, it has also won converts with its increasingly eclectic style.

Despite the experimentation, the fundamental character of Metallica’s music has remained unchanged, as has the group’s attitude toward its fans. If this hasn’t been clear on Metallica’s last two albums (“Load” and “Re-Load”), it was when the group took the stage before a sellout crowd of 15,000 at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on Friday.

As much of a thrill ride as the band’s last tour was with its elaborate staging and pyrotechnic finale, the music hit home just as hard without all the special effects, the live energy pumping up some of the lesser tunes and resurrecting the classics.

The two-hour set reflected the depth and breadth of Metallica’s repertoire--an increasingly difficult feat over the years--from grinding symphonic splendor (“Master of Puppets,” “One”) to thrashier blasts from the past (“Creeping Death”) to an unplugged subset that was equally powerful, if not as loud as the rest of the selections. The Misfits’ “Last Caress/Green Hell” (a favorite included on Metallica’s 1987 cover song collection, “Garage Days Revisited”) was just as charged sans electric current, and “Low Man’s Lyric” (from “Re-Load”) benefited greatly from the bare-bones intensity of the acoustic attack.

The back-to-basics approach also underscored why the band continues to inspire such a loyal following. No matter where Metallica’s studio ventures take it, onstage the musicians always manage to maintain a balance between larger-than-life rock hero gestures and down-to-earth respect for the fans who got them where they are.

At a certain point in its erratic career, Alice in Chains might have developed a similar relationship with its audience, but AIC’s self-absorbed gloom (and singer Layne Staley’s drug addiction) has undermined its musical potential. With the band in limbo, guitarist Jerry Cantrell struck out on his own this year with a promising solo album, “Boggy Depot.” At Irvine Meadows, where Cantrell was the middle bill, he proved to be a charismatic front man--a good thing since his backing band (which included AIC drummer Sean Kinney and former Queensryche guitarist Chris DeGarmo) was laid-back to a fault (former Fishbone keyboardist Chris Dowd was a lively exception).

Undaunted by the booming, bottom-heavy sound levels that threatened to capsize several songs (not an issue for Metallica), Cantrell led his band through a vibrant set of “Boggy” material peppered with Alice in Chains selections.

The lopsided sound was an even greater disadvantage for opener Days of the New. The Louisville, Ky., quartet specializes in hard rock with a twist: Both guitarists play acoustic only. Though the foursome seemed to take the sound problems in stride, the amplified acoustic guitars were no match for the thunder of the drums, which swallowed up all the exotic nuances of the group’s Zeppelinesque music.