So the other night I was listening to Metallica's Garage Inc., which is a fine album of covers. And as I listened to it I realized Metallica has the chops to play pretty much whatever they want. Later (and so to bed) I drifted into that bizarre area between wakefulness and sleep and the hammering guitar riff of It's Electric was still in my mind, along with the relative nuances of Astrology, and suddenly I was hearing a hammering guitar riff, in 5/4, just brutal and wicked. It was, in that neverland of my mind...
Tarkus. But being played by Metallica. I had constructed the whole thing in my mind. (I know, I know, maybe time to up the meds.)
I would love to hear them cover ELP's Tarkus suite, if for no other reason than Tarkus is possibly almost more thrash metal than prog, at least Eruption, etc. Maybe I'm crazy. I can just hear Hetfield singing "Has the dawn ever seen your eyes-yuuh", "Realize your are-yuhh". "Clear the battlefield and let them see-yuuuh". You know that annoying vocal inflection I am talking about. I think Kirk could adequately reproduce the Emerson solos, and ol' Lars would be more than capable of a Palmer imitation.
I think it would be a nice ride and realistically I would pay $ to hear it done well. We live on your bones or whatever...the irony of one dinosaur doing covers of another does not escape me.