The creeping death in ‘86 Toronto

I’m a big Metallica fan, however I’ve haven’t dived deep into interviews or whatever. As I understand James sped this song up massively at the beginning because he was pissed at Lars, being after Cliffs death, or whatever reason it was. 2 questions based off this incident if I’m right in what I’m saying: 1) Did the rest of the band know this was gonna happen? Because they kept up amazingly. And does people who shit on lars realise this was an amazing time to prove himself on a hard song and makes him an amazing drummer amongst the whole genre (bare in mind I will never think that success automatically makes you the best)