Name: Olly Smith

Location: Kent, England

Email: olly@metworld.co.uk

Messenger:

Very, very, very difficult question. I don’t have a specific favourite, although for a long time I would have replied Blackened. Here’s a short list of what I would consider my more (?!?) favourite songs:

Although as Steve said these could easily change tomorrow and it of course doesn’t include any of the great cover versions they do.

I was extremely lucky to win a meet and greet pass in Paris 23/06/2004, heres what I had to say about the experience at the time.

With a sexual and meaty amount of Metallicaworld in tow with me, Steve, Ed, Cads and Hector arrived at the venue having spent a day in the heart of Paris. After a few stressful moments thinking I wouldn’t make the Meet and Greet in time, my fears were squashed when we arrived at the Met Club stand to be greeted by none other than our friend Matthias. After a substantial wait it was time for our names to be checked off on the list, after slight confusion as to why my name wasn’t on there all became clear when I explained that I was a Donington meet and greet winner (or as Lars later joked, A Download reject!!!). Once we all had our meet and greet passes (not as sticky as I’d like really, although to be fair I still would have been worried about it flying off if it had been sewed on!!) we made our to the backstage area where we stood in a corridor in a row. At this point I was so excited yet very nervous, I was shaking quite a bit which is weird for someone like me as usual I’ll stay calm in such situations.

After a short wait, Rob was the first to come out, he was a great guy, I welcomed him to the Metallica family, which he seemed grateful for, although to be fair I think a few thousand people make him feel pretty damn welcome every gig they play!! We had a chat about the Donington show and other stuff and posed for a few photos. He signed the stuff I wanted signed and he moved on down the line. I was still shaking, it is very difficult to maintain calmness when you’re looking into your idols’ eyes and shaking their hands, it is quite surreal. The next person down the line was James, for this I was now very scared, I’ve admired James greatly over the years and now was my time to actually meet him. He was, again, a really, really nice guy, good fun and really friendly, to be 100% honest, I can’t remember the specifics of the conversation, in a way it all felt like a bit of a dream, but we chatted about the tour and Donington and the inclusion of Rob in the band, it was absolutely amazing to meet him, something I shall never forget. The next person I met was Kirk who was a really, really top man, a really calm person, again we chatted about some stuff, the tour, about how much he enjoyed playing with Joey and Dave at Donington. It felt like I’d met Kirk before in a way, he was really open and friendly.