Metallica opened their 24-show residency, Life Burns Faster, at Las Vegas's Sphere on 1 October 2026, with a set that avoided obvious hits in favor of deeper cuts, showcasing the breadth of their catalog. The band's "no repeat" format means they play twice a week without repeating a single song during that week, making for a more interesting show and a reminder of just how many indelible classics they've written.
Rarities-Focused Setlist
On night one, the band avoided a full nostalgia grab, playing Hardwired...to Self Destruct's marching Now That We're Dead from 2016, the furious Lux Æterna from 2023's 72 Seasons, and the half-ballad-half-catharsis of The Day that Never Comes, from 2008's Rick Rubin-produced return to thrash Death Magnetic. The loose, non-chronological album-hopping allows the band to track their progress through their relationship to real fans, focusing on emotion over adherence to a rigid greatest hits timeline.
They did not play Enter Sandman on night one, but they did play Ride the Lightning's instrumental The Call of Ktulu while a giant, slimy Cthulhu unfolded itself and plodded through Vegas, mottled skin shimmering as it grabbed a fighter jet and threw it at the audience. The moment brought Metallica's gruesome visual world into a twisted hyperreality, though the review notes a wish to see the band in a tiny, sweaty venue without any visuals at all, as they still hold so much kinetic energy and power.
Band's Enduring Energy
Everyone in Metallica is now in their early 60s, but it doesn't seem like it. Lars Ulrich finds new pockets to expand his driving rhythm, James Hetfield can still move his voice from gravelly-metallic snarl to full and rounded ballad, Kirk Hammett's guitar-work is intricate and unpredictable, and Robert Trujillo's percussive work on the five string bass adds depth to everything, gluing it all together.
Most Metallica songs are built on constant forward-movement and simmering rage, but as they've gotten older they've peeled back the facade and revealed the self-awareness that allows them to avoid the nostalgia trap of seeming like faded versions of their former selves. The band bookended the show with two cuts from Master of Puppets, kicking things off with a furious rendition of Battery and closing with the anthemic title track, as the walls of the Sphere morphed into an immersive version of the album cover's military graveyard, with each member of the band projected onto one of the crosses.
Immersive Visuals and Human Moments
During Ride the Lightning, a song about being wrongly executed in an electric chair, the audience stared out at the band from the chair itself, the headpiece crackling overhead as if they were the ones waiting to be killed. It was frequently overwhelming and occasionally awe-inspiring, but it never fully distracted from their very tight set. In the middle of the show, Ulrich and Hetfield left the stage, as the other two spent a few minutes jamming to the marching rhythm of a single kick drum, projected onto the Sphere and melting into viscous ocean waves.
Metallica has survived this long not because they're genre shapeshifters, but because their music is so rooted in the forever resonant concepts of injustice, mortality, human violence and mistrust. During Nothing Else Matters, Hetfield asked the crowd to sing the chorus back to him, and after the final "and nothing else mattersssss" was belted out from the stands, he responded: "You're absolutely right." Toward the end of the show, the band went all the way back to the beginning with a tight, faithful version of Seek and Destroy, accompanied by footage of the band members in their early days.
Eventually the inside of the Sphere lit up flat gray. The house lights came on, Hetfield greeted fans, and Trujillo and Hammett threw cups full of guitar picks into the audience while Ulrich carefully handed out a few drumsticks, before stopping to shake hands and admire signs concertgoers had written. The show is over, but Metallica are still here. Metallica's Life Burns Faster residency is at Sphere, Las Vegas, until 13 March 2027.
