THE LIGHTS GO DARK, and more than 70,000 fans begin to shout, roar, clap and chant, eager for the start of the show. An electric guitar blares from a battery of speakers, and James Hetfield bends towards the microphone like a lion eyeing his prey. "We are Metallica!" he bellows, pointing to the far reaches of the crowd. "And so are you!" He attacks the strings of his Electra Flying V guitar, hands moving at scorching speed as the singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist leads his band in a high-energy set that will last nearly two hours. The heavy metal music fires up the crowd with songs that will ring in their ears long after the encore.
Hetfield has been invigorating people with his music for more than 40 years. Metallica has sold more than 120 million albums, far more than any other metal band and outselling such names as Johnny Cash, The Beach Boys and Fleetwood Mac. They've performed all over the world, with a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first band to play a concert on all seven continents. They once performed before more than one million people during a Moscow music festival, and the most popular video on the band's YouTube channel has been viewed 1.2 billion times. Their last studio album charted at No. 1 in 32 countries. They have won nine Grammy awards, own a spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and boast Billboard No. 1 hits in four different decades. Metallica's new album, called 72 Seasons, drops on April 14.
This story is from the March / April 2023 edition of Cigar Aficionado.
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This story is from the March / April 2023 edition of Cigar Aficionado.
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