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After Metallica had finished playing, Fred and Harald proceeded to celebrate their
ferocious set and rapturous reception in time-honoured tradition by getting fearsomely drunk.
Fred recalls: “Metallica played third, right after Yngwie, and we all got smashed backstage while
the whole thing was going on. We weren’t going out there to watch any other bands, we were
just partying backstage after Metallica played. This soon spilled out of the backstage area into
the main arena, says Fred. James and I got a little out of hand. After they came off stage, I
wanted James to take the deli tray and go behind the stage, where there were a couple of rows of
seats that were closed to the public, and throw food at people. So we took a couple of oranges
and tried to hit people with them. I tried to get Cliff to go, but he didn’t want anything to do with
it. We almost couldn’t get back in, because the guy didn’t believe that James just got done
playing with one of the bands. All the other guys looked like Kiss, with their big hair and
spandex and shit, and James was wearing ripped-up Levis”.
Note the crucial point here about Cliff’s involvement in this inoffensive foolishness. Ever
a man with his wits about him, even after a case of beer or a couple of spliffs, he refused to do
this kind of thing.
As we’ve seen, he could rage with the best of them, but he usually preferred to hold back
a little and keep his eyes open. What kind of man would he have become if had been allowed to
live until full maturity, given that at 23 years old he was acting with such restraint? The carnage
intensified. Harald had achieved an entirely surreal level of intoxication by the time that James
and Fred talked their way back into their dressing room. As he says now: “People told me later
that I was dragging my camera bag all over the ground, and it had broken beer bottles inside it
that had opened, so I was leaving a snail-trail of beer behind me. We totally trashed the dressing
room. We were throwing avocados into the air-conditioning vents. It was crazy”. When the band
returned to the backstage area, Harald begged them to write…
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…followed. In the audience was Dave Pybus, who found fame a decade or so later as the bassist
in the British metal band Cradle of Filth. “Me and two schoolfriends went to see Metallica play”,
he says. “Cliff seemed to be the cool, intense one”. Add to that his awesome stage presence and
that constantly banging head, and it was hard not to think of the guy as a showman more in line
with lead vocalists or guitarists. “It was the fifth or so live show I’d ever experienced, and being
only 16 at the time I was pretty timid. I’d really got into Hetfield’s playing and wanted to check
him out, but due to the skateboarding accident his right arm was in a cast and John Marshall did
the playing for him at the side of the stage. And so my attention had to wander onto Cliff and
Kirk. It wasn’t the same because of that…I felt a little let down. And the hall was kinda half
full”.

Publisher Iain MacGregor remembers the London show in detail. “Both Metallica and their
support act, Anthrax, were by then established in the British music mainstream”, says Iain, “and
so the last show of their UK tour at the Hammersmith Apollo was a very big deal indeed.
Anthrax were up for it, but the main event, was, well…full-throttle moshing. I can still remember
Cliff going about his business, laying down the bassline like a demented monk”.

Things looked up for the remaining UK and Irish dates, however, where crowds packed into
venues in Edinburgh, Dublin, Belfast, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, Birmingham, and
London. The bassist in Therapy?, Mike McKeegan, was at the Belfast show. He remembers:
“Metallica were one of my first life-changing bands. Integral to the whole vibe was the gang
aspect of the band, four distinct individuals rockin’ it out together”.

“Master Of Puppets live was inspiring”, Iain continues, “as was the back catalogue Am I evil
was that years highlight for me. My friends and I all travelled down 100 miles or so to London
for the gig and managed to stand in line for however long it took. We met the band, too. Lars
was friendly but business-like, and Hammett and Hetfield were chatting and scribbling
signatures animatedly. Cliff? He was just…
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…enjoyed a genuine blood, despite the Metallica-versus-Megadeth resentment that had been
simmering poisonously since Dave was fired four years previously. As she says: “I met Dave
Mustaine through Cliff. He was really wonderful, because he always adored Cliff. They really
didn’t seem to have a beef at all. They were really respectful towards each other”.
Cliff’s childhood friend Doug Teixeira heard the news a little later. “I was up at the Stone
at a metal night, and my buddy came up to me and said, Did you hear about Cliff Burton? He
was killed in a bus crash. I said, dude, get outta here I just saw him! The last time I saw Cliff
alive was when Metallica were opening up for Ozzy at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. They
sounded great. Right after they got done performing, Cliff came walking right out onto the floor
and found me. We were talking and having a nice time, and all the people started getting around
him, because they were recognizing him. I said, Dude, get out of here, they’re going to mob you.
He goes, all right, I’ll catch up with you later, and then he left and that was the last time I saw
him”.
Photographer Ross Halfin, based in the UK, heard the news slightly later than the
Americans. He tells me: “This is a true story. I was actually playing Battery in the car to annoy
my then wife, and she was like, Turn this rubbish off, and I got home and I heard he was dead. I
was shocked. The last time I’d photographed them was in rehearsals in Birmingham, just before
they went out on tour. I remember Kirk telling me later that the thing which had weirded him out
the most is that they swapped bunks the night before it happened, Kirk would have been the one
through the window. He was really freaked out”.
Family and friends gathered on October 7 1986 for Cliff’s funeral in Castro Valley. The
service was attended by the band, their families and friends, and even a handful of Metallica
fans. Roadie John Marshall: “There were a few fans that had found out about it and got in, but it
was all pretty respectful. There were a lot of local musicians
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according to Corinne, he said that James was the only guy he knew who was fearless but still
retained his irreverent take on life, a humour apparent on the Metallica albums on which he
appeared.
James once observed that the songs on Puppets reminded him of an innocent Metallica.
Not innocent as in stupid, he explained, but not tarnished, not ruined by fame. “Even though
we’ve tried out hardest not to be touched by popularity, it’s impossible not to feel the effects of
it. So [I mean] the honesty and the innocence of Master Of Puppets still sleeping, living, at the
studio, still roughing, and still having that fire. And only Metallica on our mind’s just Metallica.
Now it’s different. There’s family, there’s a lot of things that are important in our lives. I think
Master Of Puppets was…that was all we ever thought about ever”.
This has been the story of a unique man. It’s a story with a sad ending, but one that
should not obscure the happiness and optimism that Cliff felt and passed on to those who knew
him and heard his music. If anything, we should be thoughtful rather than sad when we learn
about his incredible life and unfair death, just as Lars was when he said: “I often think, now
much more than ever, how much of a character and personality Cliff actually was. He was just
one in five billion people on this earth, and we will never, ever, even be tempted to come up with
anyone like him”.
Corinne Lynn, too, understands what a rare person Cliff was. Behind her understandable
sadness at his early death she celebrates his achievements. “Cliff changed my life, and my
outlook, and just made me grow. He taught people a lot not by preaching, just by example. He
showed me what it means to be alive on this earth, and how to deal with stuff and not to be so
afraid of life because he wasn’t. Cliff Burton’s music will always be there for those who need it.
Musicians live on through their music, and in that sense he will never die.