A museum for late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton is set to open in Ljungby, Sweden — near the site of the fatal bus accident that took the metal legend’s life in 1986.
The municipality of Ljungby announced that the Cliff Burton Museum will open on May 14th in a partially government-funded building. The museum will include pictures, albums, posters, and ticket stubs, plus interviews and photos from the first photographer at the crash site: Lennart Wennberg of the Expressen newspaper. There will also be a film of recollections from first responders at the crash scene.
One major exhibit will feature a stage recreating Metallica’s last concert with Burton in Stockholm, along with copies of the bass guitar and drum kit played by Burton and Lars Ulrich, respectively. For the museum opening, writer Joel McIver, who penned a 2009 biography on Burton, will deliver a speech about the bassist’s life and work.
“We primarily want to honor Cliff Burton, who died so tragically in the middle of his career, and talk about who he was as a person and a musician,” museum organizers told Guitar World. “Our second main purpose is to create a meeting place for all those who seek the memorial site in the small community of Dörarp. We want to continue the fine work that the fans started when they started raising funds to make Cliff’s memorial stone.”
Metallica’s Swedish fan club previously erected a memorial site at the site of Burton’s bus crash. It has been a place of pilgrimage and memorial for Metallica fans across Europe and beyond.
For more information, see the museum’s Instagram post below.