The Napster lawsuits, the alterna-haircuts, the mid-tempo dad rock years, even the questionable orchestral foray was palatable. Filming themselves listening to that heavy-metal Eugene Landy (performance enhancement coach Phil Towle) spit out fortune cookie platitudes that were intended to heal their broken metalheads was not. Either way, Wednesday night's Metallica performance makes them all moot issues.

A veteran band in fine form, Metallica gave a 2¹/₂-hour show with a set list that helped make amends for a six-year absence.

After a film clip of Eli Wallach from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," the band ran through the audience to mount the revolving stage for the opener, "Blackened." After that came "Fuel," which featured new bassist Robert Trujillo facing off with James Hetfield in Sumo wrestler poses. "Wherever I May Roam" got a great crowd response and was followed by a short bass solo. Trujillo plays great bass, and his onstage style of spider-crab action poses has great presence and variance from former bassist Jason Newsted's crowd-ingratiating fanboy.

Hetfield, always charismatic, lets a few New Age-y verbal riffs soften his usual rousing stage patter. In the intro to "Frantic," he tells the crowd that "this is the safest place to get out [their anger] and to leave it here with me." Aside from the new attitude, his vocals and guitar are just as powerful as always.

"Disposable Heroes," another of many crowd-pleasers, was followed by a really melodic Kirk Hammett solo. A truly graceful and powerful guitarist, he then segued into the beautiful intro of "Fade to Black." That pretty much brought the house down until the next song, "Master of Puppets," with some easily solicited call-and-response audience vocals, trumped it.

Lars Ulrich played like a man possessed on "Battery," or, more accurately, he was playing like that all night, and I just acknowledged it because the drums were finally facing me. The revolving stage setup enabled him to interact with fans on all sides of the arena. He did, frequently leaving his drum set to elicit a crowd response. He's not an easy character to ignore.

The highlight of roughly an hour of encores was a magnificently staged and executed version of "One." Starting with some audio excerpts from the film "Full Metal Jacket" the song was then preceded by a barrage of pyrotechnics appropriate in setting the ambience. This from a band that was never considered theatrical. "Nothing Else Matters," "Sad but True" and a nicely lit "Enter Sandman" helped round out the set. "Seek and Destroy" was the final song.

Godsmack, with its anthemic metal and earthy hooks, was a good fit to open the show. Lead singer Sully Erna, a natural-born front man, has a singing voice reminiscent of Layne Staley and a speaking voice even more reminiscent of Ben Gazzara. The band's hour set had some crowd-pleasers. Standouts included "Mistakes," ending with guitar effects that segued into "Keep Away," and the finale, "I Stand Alone."

Ulrich had the last word. He left the stage saying, "Six years is too long, Pittsburgh." Who can argue that? Dr. Phil?