Back in 1992, a wild pyro incident took place where Metallica guitarist James Hetfield got injured. During the band’s tour with Guns N’ Roses, James was hit by a burst of fire that was going off on stage.
Details regarding this story were shared by pyro technician Pete Cappadocia via Killer Guitar Rigs, with Cappadocia sharing how shit went down. The pyro tech says that the accident that badly wounded Hetfield happened due to a mix-up. This is what Cappadocia had to say:
“So Metallica is playing and I’m sitting on a road case, because Guns N’ Roses is gonna go next. And I’m playing my GameBoy. I’m playing a game and I’m playing the game and all of a sudden, I hear this horrific guitar noise. And everyone’s like, James is hurt!’ So we all run to the stage.”
“By the time I got there, the medical team was bringing him off [the stage]. What happened was, the guy that was shooting it, who was their guy, used to shoot it in Europe for them… They had moved the monitors, they had moved a piece of pyro. And James walked to his spot.”
Cappadocia continues:
“So he’s playing guitar. So he’s got his arm like this [standing up and playing], right? And so the pyro thing is right here [left of James]. So here’s the pyro and his arm was right here. And he walked to his cue to the spot as normal. They shot the pyro but then he did like a half a step. And he actually passed his arm so the pyro was coming up as he past arm through it. So it was like such a freak accident to happen. James stopped. So the pyro guy hit the cue, then James did that little half a step extra and put his arm right over it. And then the riot ensued.”
Below you can find a video interview that features James talking about the incident. We are glad that James was able to recover from such a brutal situation!
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