See Metallica perform The Day That Never Comes

Metallica: sitting pretty at the top of the UK album chart
Metallica: sitting pretty at the top of the UK album chart

Metallica performed material from their new album Death Magnetic live on television for the first time last night. Live on BBC2 in the UK, the band performed lead single The Day That Never Comes on Later Live...With Jools Holland .

Kings Of Leon and French First Lady Carla Bruni also featured on the show. An extended version will be broadcast on Friday night at 11:35pm BST with performances of Death Magnetic track Cyanide and the band's 1991 classic Enter Sandman also due to be aired.

Reaction to the performance on fan forums seems mixed with some people complaining about the guitars sounding out of tune in the clean passages of the song, and others accusing singer James Hetfield of sounding a little hoarse.

Give the guy a break! He'd sung for two hours at the O2 Arena the night before...

To see last night's show in its entirety, check it out on the BBC's iPlayer.

If you only want to see the Metallica performance, inevitably some cheeky scamp has ripped it and posted it on YouTube.

Chris Vinnicombe worked with us here on the MusicRadar team from the site's initial launch way back in 2007, and also contributed to Guitarist magazine as Features Editor until 2014, as well as Total Guitar magazine, amongst others. These days he can be found at Gibson Guitars, where he is editor-in-chief.