Professionally filmed video of METALLICA performing the song “Holier Than Thou” at the I Days festival on May 29 at Ippodromo SNAI La Maura in Milan, Italy during the 2024 leg of the band’s “M72” tour can be seen below.
In support of METALLICA‘s latest album, “72 Seasons”, the band has been playing two-night, no-repeat shows in each city— first in Europe , then in North America and now back in Europe — as part of the “M72” tour. Each concert sees METALLICA performing on a massive ring-shaped stage, with the Snake Pit in the center, and four drum sets which are equally spaced out around the circular stage so drummer Lars Ulrich can get closer to the audience at various points in the show.
METALLICA frontman James Hetfield spoke about his mindset going into the 2024 leg of “M72”, telling “The Metallica Report”: ”What I’m going into is unknown. I know how big the stage is. I know we have breaks here and there. I know what we’re walking into. When we first started with this, with the ‘M72’ stage, in the round in the stadium, from between setting up cones, walking around thinking, ‘Oh, this is how big the stage is gonna be.’ ‘Oh, this is cool.’ ‘This’ll be great.’ ‘This is too skinny,’ and this and that. And then, between that time and then actually seeing it built, where it’s kind of too late, ‘Oh shit, this thing is so big.’ The anxiety level was off the charts at the beginning of the ‘M72’ tour. Like, how are we gonna cover this stage? And, of course, my ego saying, ‘Well, the other guys don’t have to sing. They don’t have to run over there. They don’t have to do all this. And no one knows the woes I have and all the worries.’ But as soon as I share them with the other guys, they’re, like, ‘Yeah, but I got this and I got this.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, okay. Okay. I want mine back. That’s okay.’ So it’s a known. We know what we’re up against and we know what shape we need to be in. And it’s just fun. Now it’s just fun. We broke that stage in. It’s well trodden on and it’s worked fantastically. And so we just get to step back into it and do what we do best.”
Asked if there have been any modifications to the “M72” stage at all since the 2023 shows, Hetfield said: “There have been a few things here and there that have changed — extra microphones, whatever monitors that we need. And that’s typical on any stage, though. The lighting tends to show things that you don’t see before: ‘Yeah, we need to drape that off’ or whatever it may be, just things to make it better. Just like anything we do, you wanna improve on it. So that that was the first couple months of the first touring with the ‘M72’ stage.”
Regarding how he prepares for a METALLICA tour, especially when it comes to performing around 32 songs at each stop on the ongoing “M72” trek, Hetfield said: “Obviously, before heading out on tour, sitting there, trying to remember the myriad of pretty awesome songs we have, and then just trusting that once we get together, it’s, like, ‘Oh, yeah.’ It’s muscle memory. But, yeah, over the last month, I will say that the normal thing happens where I start to doubt myself. I start to feel insecure that, ‘Whoa, we’re old. We can’t do this,’ and blah, blah, blah, all that bullshit that everyone tells themselves before they go into something that they care about and is important. So having the nightmares of, ‘I’m the only one who cares about what we’re doing here. Where is everybody?’ I show up at the gig. Everyone’s goofing off or there’s 200 people backstage. And where’s my stuff? Where’s the setlist? What songs are we doing? And then typical things like the guitar neck is made of rubber, and there’s only two strings on it. And where’s my roadie? And the guitar cord won’t let me get to the microphone. You know, silly stuff like that that has to happen, and I don’t freak out over it. All you do is you practice and that comes back pretty quickly.”
After Munich and Milan, METALLICA continued touring throughout Europe for the first part of summer, with stops in Spain, Denmark, Norway, France and Poland, among others. Another round of North American dates will begin on August 2 in Foxborough, Massachusetts, with stops in Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle and Edmonton. METALLICA will close out the 2024 touring season with four shows in Mexico City at the end of September.
According to Billboard, METALLICA‘s production travels in 87 trucks — 45 for the band and its setup, plus two groups of 21 each for the steel stage and towers. There are 130 people in the band’s crew, plus 40 steelworkers, local hires and truck drivers.
METALLICA‘s manager Cliff Burnstein told Billboard that between 80% and 90% of fans at each concert attend both shows.
The “M72” tour launched in late April 2023 in Amsterdam.
Opening acts include FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, ICE NINE KILLS, MAMMOTH WVH, PANTERA, ARCHITECTS, GRETA VAN FLEET and VOLBEAT.
A portion of proceeds from the shows go to METALLICA‘s All Within My Hands foundation, which seeks to assist and enrich the lives of members of the communities who have supported the band and combat food insecurity; provides disaster relief; and bestows scholarships.