Metallica have just blown out the candles on their 40th Anniversary celebrations by playing two home town area-shakers at the Chase Center, San Francisco, and livestreaming the whole shebang.
But if you are bummed about missing a pair of sets that have saw Metallica dig deep into the catalogue for some lesser-performed cuts such as Trapped Under Ice and The Short Straw, or indeed the to play Fixxxer for the first time ever, you are in luck.
Over the Christmas weekend, from 5pm, Friday 24 December through Monday, 27 December, both shows will be streaming on demand via The Coda Collection in the US and Prime Video internationally.
Thereafter, the shows will be available for subscribers to The Coda Collection, alongside a cornucopia of Metallica-related video content, such as the aesthetic live-show excesses of the Load era with 1998’s Cunning Stunts, and footage from three shows at the Foro Sol, Mexico City, dates of 2009's World Magnetic Tour.
There will be more Metallica shows arriving on The Coda Collection throughout 2022, but what can you expect from the 40th Anniversary shows? Well, they promised a set that spanned all eras of the band’s discography, and that is what they delivered.
On the first night, which took place on 17 December, headbangers of the Metal Up Your Ass vintage would have been delighted to hear the band open with Hit The Lights, tearing through evergreen hits such as Creeping Death and Breadfan, with the aforementioned Trapped Under Ice the first time it had been played since 2012.
We might have wished for more from …And Justice For All, which is always underserved on such occasions, perhaps because its long-form tracks eats into the other setlist options. Indeed, when they performed The Shortest Straw – an all-time Top 10 ‘Tallica tune – it was, err, shortened further with a solo trimmed off.
Two nights later, the likes of Enter Sandman, Whiplash and Fade To Black returned to the set, with notably rare outings for Bleeding Me, I Disappear and Wasting My Hate.
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After the show, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Rob Trujillo decamped to the Fillmore to play a covers set with The Wedding Band, and invited Gibson’s Cesar Gueikian onstage to jam Black Sabbath standards Fairies Wear Boots and Symptom Of The Universe.
And while that’s notable that Gibson’s Brand President was jamming with Hammett, what makes this particularly interesting is the guitars used, with Gueikian playing Hammett’s ‘Greeny’, the 1959 Les Paul Standard once owned by Peter Green and latterly Gary Moore. Hammett, meanwhile, was playing a Greeny prototype, suggesting that this long-awaited replica is close to a release. We’ll keep our eyes peeled for that.
Meanwhile, if you want to check out these Metallica 40th Anniversary shows, head over The Coda Collection if you are in the US, or Prime Video if viewing internationally. The Coda Collection is available via Prime for a seven-day trial before a monthly subscription of $4.99 is needed.
