You’ve read our Metallica coverage on about the band’s beginnings, the band’s triumphant Big Four show in Southern California, and the recent article in their fan magazine, So What, about their music and your mental health. Now the band will celebrate an important milestone at the end of the year: its 30th anniversary on December 5.
As the band announced on its website, Metallica will hold a week long celebration for their anniversary, “a full-on week in the Bay Area.” There will be four shows for fan club members at the Fillmore in San Francisco on December 5, 7, 9 and 10th.
As the band’s site continues, “These unique shows will include special guests and events, rare songs, varied set lists, and all the nutty stuff you expect from Metallica.”
These shows are sure to be a blast for any card-carrying Metallica fan, and here’s some other dates you can celebrate in their honor next year as well.
Metallica played its first gig at the long gone Anaheim CA club Radio City on March 14, 1982, made their vinyl debut on the Metal Massacre album compilation on June 14, 1982, and first jammed with Cliff Burton on December 28, 1982. You can also keep celebrating into the summer of 1983, when Kill ‘Em All was released on July 25, which the band is sure to commemorate as well.
Also, not to make anyone feel any older, but Master of Puppets, along with the other masterpieces of thrash, Megadeth’s Peace Sells, and Slayer’s Reign in Blood, all hit 25 this year. Metal’s definitely come a long way, baby.
As KJ Doughton, who ran Metallica’s first fan club and wrote their authorized biography Metallica Unbound, told TG Daily, “People can go, ‘Oh, I knew that Metallica would be the biggest band in the world from the day I laid eyes on them in 1983,’ or whatever, but that’s all bullshit. Nobody knew. I figured they’d become an American Motorhead at best. Then they kept growing and exceeding everyone’s expectations time and time again. Amazing.”
And as Patrick Scott, who was close friends with Lars Ulrich before Metallica even formed, told TG, “Imagine if you knew some kid when you were in high school, and he ended up masterminding one of the biggest bands in the world, of all time. When I see them now, I try to put myself in a different state of mind, like what would I think of them if it all hadn’t happened the way it happened. I figured out I can’t get to that place in my mind. Can’t separate myself from the past. Seeing them live, as far as they’ve come, even to this day, is a pretty magical thing.”
