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On a chilly Friday night in December, San Franciscos' Chase Center welcomed Metallica for two nights, December 17 & 19th for their 40th anniversary tour. At the start of the show was a short video showing a bit of history of this band, with old photos and clips of interviews. The band came out to a very warm rand long awaited eception by the fans. During the show, frontman James Hetfield paused the music and said, “We are grateful that you have been along with us for 40 years, and we are so happy that you’re here still after all this time. It still blows my mind. Because we were created to do this. I know it.” And with that, Hetfield, Kirk Hammet, Lars Ulrich and Robert Trujillo went into "The Shortest Straw" a seven minute deep cut from their album, "And Justice for All".  And the crowd went crazy! The concert attendees were made up of only Metallica fan club members, so these were their superfans in attendance at the Chase Center.  And they had every right to be excited, as their band was on fire that night!

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The band played in the round. In my opinion it did not work for them. But it was different and interesting to see. The band members walked around the stage as much as possible surrounding drummer, Lars, in the center of the stage. As I scanned the audience throughout the show, it was very apparent that nearly all, knew and sang along to the lyrics of each song with devils horns in the air and each had great enthusiasm. Super nice to see at any show. 

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The Chase Center holds 18,064 people. At this show, due to Covid, the attendance was at about 10,000, I was told.  And, although there was a health check at the door, not many inside were masked.  And of course, everyone was pretty tightly packed as near to the stage as possible.

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The band began with Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield (the two songwriters). They started Metallica in 1981 in San Francisco. In 2017, they were named as one of the greatest rock bands of all time, by Rolling Stone magazine, ranked at number 61.  And in 2009 they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Metallica has sold over 125 million albums worldwide. They are also the recipients of nine Grammy Awards. 

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All in all, this was the second time I've seen them and both shows were loads of high energy and fun to watch. They put on a good show to their adoring fans, who on this night, happened to be members of their fan club, literally!