Metallica finally released their much anticipated new album 72 Seasons this year, and the epic M72 tour in support of it is underway.
The idea behind those date is pretty epic: two shows in every city with a totally different setlist each night. The double-show, ‘No Repeats’ set up means they can dig deep into their vast back catalogue and pull out one of the 17 songs they’ve never played before.
That’s right, there are a handful of Metallica tracks that have never been aired live. While they’ve rinsed everything on every album from Kill ’Em All through to the Black Album, there’s still plenty of stuff from the latter part of their career that deserves their time in the sun, even if it is for one night only.
We consulted Setlist.fm – aka the Bible of all things setlist-related – to check out the Metallica songs that have never been played in concert. To avoid chaos and confision, we’re keeping it to studio albums and EPs and disregarding cover versions and collaborations (sorry not sorry, Lulu).
Here here they are – the 22 officially released Metallica songs that have never been played live.
Load
Unsurprisingly, Metallica have played everything from their first five albums multiple times (with the exception of Ride The Lightning song Escape, which has grudgingly been aired just the once). But only 10 of Load’s 14 tracks have all made regular or semi-regular appearances in the band’s set in the years since that album was released. The exceptions are The House That Jack Built, Cure, Thorn Within and the country-fried ballad Ronnie.
Reload
Viewed by many with even less regard than its predecessor, the perception of 1997’s Reload as an afterthought was underlined by the fact that Metallica only played a handful of shows in support of it. While the likes of Fuel and The Memory Remains have regularly popped up over the years, six of its 13 songs have yet to make to make their live debut, namely: Better Than You, Slither, Bad Seed (though the band have teased it as part of a jam), Where The Wild Things Are, Prince Charming and the perpetually under-rated Attitude.
St Anger
Amazingly, given the scorn heaped on Metallica’s divisive 2003 album, all but four of the songs that appear on St Anger have been played at least once. The tracks left standing in their gym shorts, waiting to be picked for the sports team are: My World, Shoot Me Again, Purify and, surprisingly, Invisible Kid, one of the album’s few real highlights. Come on Metallica, let them have a run out at least once.
Hardwired… To Self-Destruct
While Death Magnetic has been picked clean by the years of touring that followed it, two tracks from 2016‘s Hardwired… To Self-Destruct remain unplayed. Murder One and the monolithic Am I Savage? are the songs in question – surely the latter could be swapped in for the not entirely dissimilar Sad But True at a couple of gigs?
72 Seasons
The big story about Metallica’s M72 tour – other than its epic in-the-round stage set – is that the band are playing two shows in every city and promising that the stage set will be different at both shows. Logic suggests that they’ll end up playing several, if not all, of 72 Seasons’ 12 tracks by the time the tour ends in late 2024.
As of the tour’s fourth show, they’d played Lux Æterna, Screaming Suicide, Sleepwalk My Life Away, If Darkness Had A Son, You Must Burn! and the title track. That leaves six tracks they’ve never played live: Shadows Follow, Crown Of Barbed Wire, Chasing Light, Too Far Gone, Room Of Mirrors and epic album closer Inamorata. But there’s nearly another 18 months left, so there’s plenty of time to throw any of them in the setlist.
