Muzach

Metallica are plotting a series of major gigs next year which could rival Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' live dates, their manager has revealed.

Peter Mensch said the group were in the process of arranging the shows, which he claimed “will blow your mind”.

“They will only play in 10 cities but it will be a huge undertaking,” he said.

“It will be Metallica’s equivalent of The Wall.”

Metallica are currently on the South American leg of their 'Death Magnetic' tour.

In an interview with Classic Rock magazine, Mensch said that as manager he was responsible for ensuring the band's live shows remained interesting.

“Just shooting off dumb ideas and, by the way, between you and me, some of it is recycling stuff that people did 25 years ago but no one’s smart enough to know that we recycled it,” he added.

As previously reported on Gigwise, around 160 people were arrested and at least eight people injured outside a Metallica concert in Bogota last Wesdnesday.

Ever since Paul McGuinness, manager of the rock band U2, began lashing out at Internet Service providers two years ago for allegedly profiting from and encouraging illegal file sharing, U2 fans have wondered whether McGuinness spoke for the band.

Bono, lead singer of the rock band U2 (seen here last month at the Vevo launch party) is inviting controversy by speaking out against file sharing.

(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)

Bono, U2's outspoken frontman, cleared that up this weekend. As part of a op-ed piece in The New York Times, the singer argued that online file sharing is hurting music and film creators and placed much of the blame on bandwidth providers.

"A decade's worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators," Bono wrote, "in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can't live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us."

Bono's comments are surprising. Most artists haven't come close to publicly criticizing file sharing for fear that they could alienate fans the same way that the band Metallica did when the rock group filed a copyright lawsuit against Napster nearly a decade ago. Lars Ulrich, Metallica's drummer, was vocal in his distaste for those who shared Metallica's music without paying for it and the band was widely criticized for their antipiracy stance.

U2 has appeared willing the past two years to let McGuinness take the spears and arrows for speaking out against file sharing. In an interview with CNET last spring, McGuinness, the band's manager for more than two decades, riled some of the free-content crowd when he said that "ultimately, free is the enemy of good."

McGuinness has typically saved his harshest rebuke for bandwidth providers, who he said "bear a huge responsibility to put things right." Bono also ripped into ISPs for not doing more to help protect copyright.

He said the people benefiting most from online piracy are those running telecom and cable companies, "whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business."

The film and recorded-music sectors have lobbied and cajoled the top ISPs, which they consider to be in the best position to block pirated material flowing freely through their pipes, to create file-sharing deterrents. The ISPs have appeared reluctant to do much. For example, the Recording Industry Association of America has tried to enlist their help in creating a system whereby participating ISPs would gradually ratchet up pressure on suspected file sharers. The RIAA promised a year ago that it had agreements in place.

So far, no partnerships have been announced. Negotiations continue but many in the music industry are weary of the perceived foot dragging of ISPs. Is that the source of Bono's frustration?

Bono and McGuinness know how it looks to some fans when the richest band in the world starts complaining about lost profits. But both men say they aren't speaking out for the benefit of U2, which McGuinness acknowledged is rich and makes a load of money off concert tours and merchandise sales. Bono and his band manager suggest that they are arguing on behalf of talented acts that have not yet made a name for themselves but would be harmed by file sharing.

"Note to self," Bono wrote in the op-ed piece. "Don't get over-rewarded rock stars on this bully pulpit, or famous actors; find the next Cole Porter, if he/she hasn't already left to write jingles."

Check out a video recap of the Vevo Launch Party below:

"I've been playing loud rock music for the better part of 35 years," said Ulrich, 46, drummer for the heavy metal band Metallica. "I never used to play with any kind of protection."

"It's this constant ringing in the ears," Ulrich said. "It never sort of goes away. It never just stops."

Except the ringing is not spurred by actual sound. It is a condition called tinnitus, a perception of sound where there is none.

"It's a phantom auditory sensation like phantom limb pain when an arm is cut off, and you feel pain in that missing limb," said Richard Salvi, a leading tinnitus expert and director of the Center For Hearing and Wellness at the University at Buffalo in New York. "Much the same seems to happen when you have tinnitus."