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Inside Metallica’s Mammoth WorldWired Tour, Their Biggest Trek Ever

By Kory Grow

“Do you always do that?” Metallica ‘s hulking frontman, James Hetfield , asks Lars Ulrich , a hint of agitation in his voice. The two are facing each other in the “Tuning Room,” where the band typically rehearses before a show. It’s roughly 20 minutes to showtime on the first night of the tour, at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium, and they’re trying to get their 1991 classic “Wherever I May Roam” right, but the drummer is playing a strange off-kilter rhythm.

Fifteen years ago, this might have resulted in a long, teary group-therapy session, as documented in the 2004 film Some Kind of Monster . “What I said was a nice way of saying ‘What the hell are you doing?'” the frontman says later with a laugh. But today, Hetfield drops the issue and lets Ulrich play the song his own way while exchanging grins with guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Rob Trujillo. When they finish, they shrug and whip through their punky, blazing-fast new single “Hardwired.” This is how Metallica are operating on their first North American tour in eight years (and first stadium run in nearly 20): loose and easygoing, but also sensitive to one another’s feelings.

“We’ve played some of these songs 94,000 times, so it’s not like we necessarily need to practice them,” Hetfield says. “It’s more about warming up – it’s like an athletic approach where you gotta get the blood flowing. Sometimes it’s hard not to get a little adventurous or curious in the certain part because you just have to try and find ways to keep your attention focused.”

“The band can still pretty much fall apart at any moment,” the singer says with a laugh a few days later. “But we don’t want that. We know too much now. It’s come with time and growing up together, going through tons of shit together and possibly maturing. I know that’s a strange word in this business, but we care too much. We know where all the nuclear buttons are with each other, but we don’t push ’em. We love what we do, and we want to keep it going.”

This new headspace is a positive effect of the painful group therapy sessions the band endured in Some Kind of Monster with “performance enhancement coach” Phil Towle. “He got himself a little bit of a bad rap because he was deemed the villain in the movie and I think I’ve hurt myself sort of defending him over the years,” says Ulrich, who co-founded the group in 1981 with Hetfield, “but I’m pretty sure if it wasn’t for his tireless efforts, we may not be sitting here in Baltimore today ’cause there wouldn’t be a band. … I learned a lot about myself for those couple years, and I still access some of that stuff occasionally.”

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Part of the reason why the band has been able to maintain peace is the way they give each other space. Although their latest LP, Hardwired , has gotten a warm reception from fans (“In 35 years, I’ve never heard the sentence, ‘Why are you not playing more new songs?’ until this tour cycle,” Ulrich recently said), they tour only in two-week increments with two weeks off in between. And in between gigs, they fly in and out of the cities they’re playing. For their recent East Coast run, they based themselves out of New York City; after the Baltimore gig, Ulrich went to a party in Brooklyn for a 2 a.m. nightcap and Hetfield spent the next day at a shooting range in New Jersey, “letting off some steam.” Other than meet-and-greets, the first time they check in with each other on a show day is in the Tuning Room, a makeshift oasis decked out in black curtains and flags their fans have given them.

With the exception of a few hours when horror buff Hammett visited Edgar Allen Poe’s grave (“I couldn’t resist, bro”), Metallica’s time in Baltimore was mostly about business. Since they were launching a tour, they kicked things off early with a four-song soundcheck for 260 contest winners the night before the big show. The scene in the “Snake Pit” – a small area in front of the stage enclosed by a catwalk – was one of shouting and frenzied excitement, as the band played two Hardwired songs. Although they’re playing on a gargantuan stage, which stretches the width of the football field, that has the “M” and “A” from their logo on either end of it and is loaded up with pyro, video screens and inflatable balloons, they performed a relatively stripped-down set of new songs and fan favorites like the heavy “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and the hyper-speed “Battery.”

Metallica kicked off their 2023-2024 “M72 World Tour” at the Johan Cruijff ArenA in Amsterdam on Thursday evening (April 27th) in support of their new album, 72 Seasons . The two-year outing ( tickets available here ) features the metal icons playing two completely unique sets over two nights in each city.

For the first night in Amsterdam, the metal titans showcased three songs from 72 Seasons , including “Lux Æterna,” “Screaming Suicide,” and “Sleepwalk My Life Away,” with the latter two receiving their live debuts.

Elsewhere in the 16-song set, 1984’s Ride the Lightning, 1986’s Master of Puppets , and 1991’s self-titled LP (aka “The Black Album”) were equally represented with three songs each, while no more than one song was played from any other albums.

The concert kicked off with the instrumental “Orion,” marking the first time since 2011 that Metallica opened a show with the Master of Puppets classic. The set ended with the epic “Master of Puppets,” which had a major pop-culture moment last year after being featured in Netflix’s Stranger Things .

Other highlights included “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Sad but True,” “Battery,” and “Seek & Destroy.”

For fans wondering why staples like “Enter Sandman” “Wherever I May Roam,” and “Creeping Death” didn’t make the cut, it’s likely they’ll be performed Saturday night (April 29th) at the same venue. As mentioned, the band is not repeating any songs over the two shows in each city on the tour. Update: Metallica made good on their promise, as they p layed a completely unique set on night two of the set.

Metallica Announce Massive “M72 World Tour,” with Different Setlists and Openers

Metallica are performing in the round during this tour, meaning they’re surrounded by the audience on all sides as they play in the middle of the venue.

See a photo gallery, fan-filmed video footage, and the setlist of the kickoff show below, and pick up tickets to Metallica’s upcoming tour dates here . And be sure to read our recent cover story interview with Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and Robert Trujillo.

Photo Gallery – Metallica play night 1 of the “M72 World Tour in Amsterdam on April 27th, 2023 (click to expand and click through):

Setlist: Orion For Whom the Bell Tolls Holier Than Thou King Nothing Lux Æterna Screaming Suicide (live debut) Fade to Black Sleepwalk My Life Away (live debut) Nothing Else Matters Sad but True The Day That Never Comes Ride the Lightning Battery Fuel Seek & Destroy Master of Puppets

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M72 World Tour

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Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding (Washington, DC - March 20, 2024)

Lux Æterna (Detroit, MI - November 10, 2023)

Wherever I May Roam (Detroit, MI - November 12, 2023)

If Darkness Had a Son (Detroit, MI - November 12, 2023)

Through the Never (Detroit, MI - November 10, 2023)

King Nothing (St. Louis, MO - November 5, 2023)

You Must Burn! (St. Louis, MO - November 5, 2023)

The Memory Remains (St. Louis, MO - November 3, 2023)

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Wherever We May Roam Tour

• View history

Wherever We May Roam Tour was the sixth concert tour by American Heavy Metal band Metallica , beginning in the fall of 1991. The tour would span three years, overlap the Monsters of Rock '91 Tour , Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour in 1992 and Nowhere Else To Roam Tour to end in 1993.

The tour supported the band's fifth and most successful album to date Metallica . The band would stop by the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert to honor the life of Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury. Releasing their first box set Live Shit: Binge & Purge during this time featuring the audio of their Mexico City 1993 Performance, and the audio and video footage of the San Diego 1992 and Seattle 1989 from the Damaged Justice Tour Performances. Then after the tour, they would release A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica another box set showing the recording process of the Black Album and the respective tours for the album.

• 1 Typical Setlist
• 2 Typical Show Antics
• 3 Tour Dates
• 5 Personnel
• 6.1 Wherever We May Roam
• 6.2 Monsters of Rock '91
• 7 References

Typical Setlist [ ]

(Taken from the San Diego, January 13th and 14th 1992 Performances)

• Enter Sandman
• Creeping Death
• Harvester of Sorrow
• Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
• Sad But True
• Wherever I May Roam
• Through the Never
• The Unforgiven
• Eye of the Beholder
• The Frayed Ends of Sanity
• ...And Justice for All
• Guitar Solo
• The Four Horsemen
• For Whom The Bell Tolls
• Fade to Black
• Master of Puppets
• Seek & Destroy
• Last Caress
• Stone Cold Crazy

Typical Show Antics [ ]

The band dispensed with supporting acts on the tour, billing it on tickets as "An Evening with Metallica/No Opening Act". Instead, a video presentation was shown before the concerts actually started. Included might be clips of local sights near the venue, Metallica shopping in local stores, roadies prepping the arena, Lars Ulrich walking around backstage giving introductions and reciting band history, or other band members engaging in various hijinks. The video would conclude with a montage of "Enter Sandman" with film clips of Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Setlists consisted of a mixture of Metallica material with fan-favorite songs from their first four albums. Shows were typically three hours long. The stage itself was a diamond form, with a number of singing and playing positions as well as drum kit positions that would allow band members to rotate around. Some selected fans were located in a pit inside the stage area. Once in the show's mid-section, individual unaccompanied solo slots were offered up, typically a bass solo, then later a drum solo, and in another while a guitar one. The drum slot was often the most popular, with a second drum kit popping up and Hetfield taking a seat, dueling with Ulrich. Drum parts from other bands such as Slayer might be quoted, or Kirk Hammett might appear to play a bit of "Smoke on the Water" along with the drums.

Tour Dates [ ]

Songlist [ ], personnel [ ].

• James Hetfield - Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar
• Kirk Hammett - Lead Guitar
• Jason Newsted - Bass, Backing Vocals
• Lars Ulrich - Drums

Supporting Acts [ ]

Wherever we may roam [ ].

• Metal Church

Monsters of Rock '91 [ ]

• ACDC (Headliners)
• Motley Crue
• Queensryche
• The Black Crowes

References [ ]

• 1 Dave Mustaine
• 2 M72 World Tour
• 3 Metal Up Your Ass (demo)