I actually very recently heard Metallica live at Sonisphere in Helsinki.
First time for me to see Metallica and generally a bit of a disappointment, although I get that they're old by now. (That said, a lot of metal bands are ancient and most of them are just fine.)
Hetfield was even surprisingly charismatic and can actually put some emotion into his playing, but the rest of the guys, meh. However, I'll give them some slack because Ulrich was really bad at times and it's really hard to keep a good groove if the drummer can't keep up.
Maybe he needs to train harder physically or to hone his technique to be more efficient, but in any case he just simply couldn't do the tough parts, especially if there was a need for a longer steady beat. He just didn't seem very fit for a drummer, especially a metal drummer.
I would guess that he's simply not working hard enough considering his age. The other option is that he's pretty much gone deaf.
In any case certainly he certainly couldn't do their classic albums anymore.
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