Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Most fans at a Virginia Tech football game might not be able to tell you Metallica is the band that plays “Enter Sandman,” instead, they know it as the music the team enters the stadium to before every game. They also probably know it as the song that gets everyone jumping.
The first time Virginia Tech used “Enter Sandman” for its entrance was the 2000 season. Before that, the director of Hokie Vision Jed Castro said there was no big screen in the stadium, no HokieVision and no true entrance music.
“When we built the (jumbotron) board, we needed an intro video. At the time, the gold standard for college intros was Nebraska, they used the Alan Parson Project Song “Sirius” which was the Chicago Bulls song,” he said.
No one really knows why the song was picked from over a dozen others, but Castro pointed to “Enter Sandman” being upbeat and loud.
“We needed a ‘rock anthem’ type of song that would get the crowd going,” he said.
And getting the crowd going is definitely what it does.
“Enter Sandman” was released in 1991 by the Band Metallica on the group’s fifth album. The music was written by Kirk Hammett, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. Hetfield wrote the lyrics, which deal with the concept of a child’s nightmares.
The single itself, according to information about the music, achieved platinum status, selling more than one million copies. The number is estimated to have now been pushed to over 30 million.
Many Hokie fans probably only know the first few minutes of the song that features what the band calls a “wall of guitars,” and not the original lyrics from 1991.
The original release and lyrics pointed to destroying the perfect family and a horrible secret in the circle that included a reference to a crib death. Those lyrics were altered to what you hear today and has been called the first heavy metal lullaby.
For years, rumors have floated the group was going to play the song live at Lane Stadium. That has never come to fruition, but the group did make a special introduction before this year’s Notre Dame game on HokieVision with them pointing to a VT lunch pail and saying: “Hokie fans, it’s time to get jumping.”
Over the years, the home crowd has turned the entrance into the “Blacksburg bounce,” and become a staple of Virginia Tech’s pre-game ritual.
Metallica says in the song to “sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight, exit light enter night.”
Castro can’t remember all of the songs that were considered, but one that came to mind specifically was “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC.
In 2013 Fan Buzz, a sports news website named Tech’s stadium entrance as on most electric ones in college football.
The best way to make your team stand out from the pack, according to the website, is to make a great first impression. “Some universities have a knack for giving you goosebumps, while other entrances simple make the other team stop and take a peek at the show.”
The website said Lane Stadium is one of the toughest football atmospheres in which to play, and when you hear the first notes of “Enter Sandman,” you better hope you’re not the opposing team.
Castro cites “Enter Sandman” maintains its popularity because of Hokie Nation.
“The fans have made it what it is. The excitement, the energy, the jumping, it’s all because the fans have embraced it and made it something that its uniquely Virginia Tech. I also think it’s been great how Metallica has embraced the Hokies and the use of the song as well. I don’t know of any other band that has been so supportive of the use of their music in a college setting the way that band has,” he said.
Castro doesn’t see the song fading away anytime soon.
“They say that nothing lasts forever, but I can’t see it fading away. I’ll put it this way, it’s not getting any less popular,” he said.