When Jim Breuer Opened for Metallica, the Band Asked Him Not to Do Stand-Up
Comedians generally don’t have good experiences opening for music acts but don’t count Jim Breuer among that group. He seems thrilled to have been the opener for his heroes Metallica even though the heavy metal legends had an unusual request for the comedian: Don’t do comedy.When Metallica made its initial ask about Breuer working as the band’s opening act, the comic was stoked, he told Alabama news outlet AL.com. But he wasn’t necessarily expecting the follow-up request that he not do stand-up. The comic didn’t get it. If he didn’t tell jokes, then what would he do? “Sort of just entertain the crowd before we come up. You know, like maybe shoot off T-shirts and stuff like that.”Ask a comedian not to do comedy? Breuer needed clarification, so he sought out the counsel of drummer Lars Ulrich: “Jim, you’ve been around us a long time. You’re a huge fan. We had you on our 30-year anniversary. You interviewed us. You know us, and you know the crowd better than anyone. Just give them a ‘quote’ experience.”“And here’s the most important thing,” Ulrich told Breuer. “You don’t have to be funny.”Could the band be any clearer? It wanted Jim Breuer the Guy with the T-Shirt Cannon, not Jim Breuer the Comic with Jokes About Cancel Culture. Instead, Ulrich suggested Breuer share some travel tales. “Tell the stories that you’ve gone on vacations with us. Tell the stories about how you and James went to Disney World with your kids,” the drummer said. “I entirely leave all that up to you. You’re the creator. I’m not stepping on your art. You do what you got to do.”Why ask Breuer in the first place if he wasn’t going to tell jokes? It’s because the opening bands were getting destroyed. “Our crowd is so die-hard, they don’t show up for the bands,” Breuer remembers Ulrich telling him. “It’s a bummer for them. It’s a bummer for us. So we’re gonna try this.”Breuer says Metallica’s “no comedy” plan worked great. He united the crowd with games like Let’s Find the Oldest Metal Head in the Arena. The key, he says, was letting the crowd know that they were all in this together — and they all wanted the same thing.“The quicker we’re done with this, the quicker we can get Metallica,” was Breuer’s message to the audience. “But in the meantime, I just want to make sure you guys aren’t pissed.”
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