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In an excerpt from the upcoming documentation “Metallica Saved My Life” Tell two Metallica fans named Pete and Sarah, how the promise to a metallica concert after a serious motorcycle accident was exactly the incentive that Pete needed to get back on his feet. The film’s premiere will take place on Wednesday evening at the Tribeca Film Festival. With further demonstrations on Thursday and Saturday in New York City. Complete ticket information can be found on the Tribeca Festival website.
In the film, Pete explains how he and Sarah married in 1999. And “Nothing Else Matters”, the song title of Metallica, had engraved into her wedding rings. In July, Pete suffered trauma trauma in an accident. After the accident he was in a coma and was in the hospital for a long time. The recovery lasted over a year. But his personality seemed to have changed. When he learned that Metallica would appear in Oakland, California in December, he found the “bait at the end of the fishing rod” to get up again. The clip shows how literally transforming the experience of concert visit was for him.
“He comes back to me”
Sarah remembers how nervous she was because of the concert. She had prepared a wheelchair, a rollator and a walking stick. But Pete didn’t want to use any of these aids. Some fans noticed that he needed support and surrounded him like a protective wall so that he felt safe. “When Metallica finally came onto the stage and I saw his face illuminated, I thought: ‘He’s coming back to me,” she says. “Because I didn’t see the man I got married for three years. I didn’t even know who he was. It was like a miracle.” Sarah says that experience has changed her life.
“It was a good feeling of self -efficacy to say: I did it,” says Pete.
The power of music and human stories
“The clip shows one of many heartbreaking and emotional stories that we have in the film,” says filmmaker Jonas Åkerlund in an email to Rolling Stone. “Pete and Sarah were so generous to share their difficulties. And to show how Metallica became a driving force in their recovery. That is the power of music. And that’s what this film is about.”
The film does not focus on the band itself. But on their effect on the fans they love. Åkerlund, who already staged Metallica’s music videos for “Turn the Page”, “Whiskey in the Jar” and “Manunkind”, interviewed fans from 23 different countries.
“This film shows humanity at its best. What it means to take care and give yourself and how a helping hand can actually save a life,” Åkerlund told Rolling Stone. He hoped that the spectators feel inspired “to be proud of who you are. You always stay yourself. And to shear a dirt about what others think”.
Åkerlund calls the project “one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done”, especially because he learned so much about Metallica’s fans. “I always knew that Metallica’s music was powerful. But I had no idea that she was working at this level,” he says.
He is convinced that the stories in the film go far beyond that of a thrash metal band. “This is not a film about Metallica. These are stories with which we all identify and which we can understand,” he says. “They are human stories and how we as a family can achieve the impossible.”
Metallica live on tour and at the festival
Metallica and Åkerlund will take part in a Q&A round at the premiere of the film. The event takes place during a very active phase of the band. You are in the middle of a North American tour (with shocks-at least in Virginia), with concerts in Houston around the premiere, and are about to re-published a super deluxe boxing edition of your 1996 album.
“The fans are in us. They are among us. We are all connected to each other,” said Lars Ulrich in a statement about the film. “We are all together metallica, it belongs to all of us.”