Review: Metallica closes longest tour of its career with epic London stand

LONDON — Metallica saved London for last.

And these four heavy metal heroes are going for broke — giving it everything they’ve got — as they finally bring their M72 World Tour to a close with two huge shows (July 3 and 5) at London Stadium.

The trek in support of their 11th studio album, 2023’s excellent “72 Seasons,” didn’t quite end up lasting 72 (calendar) seasons. But it did course through 14 seasons, having kicked off in the spring of 2023 and — more than three years later — closing up shop during this unseasonably warm summer weekend in London.

That’s enough to make M72 the longest tour, in terms of duration, of Metallica’s career. Following Sunday’s gig in stadium, the tour will have clocked in at 1,165 days (with plenty of days off in between regional jaunts). That about 100 days longer than band’s old personal longest, which was the WorldWired Tour that ran 1,062 days in 2016-2019.

As the tour winds up, Metallica will be able to take a few months off the road and get ready for its next live-music adventure — its highly anticipated and hugely sold-out Life Burns Faster residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas that kicks off in early October and is currently set to run until March. (And, yes, basically everyone is expecting that the band will announce even more Sphere gigs for 2027.)

But let’s not rush things, shall we? Londoners (and at least one traveling Bay Area music critic) still have Sunday’s tour finale to look forward to — which, thanks to Metallica’s awesome “No Repeat Weekend” format, will consist of an entirely different setlist than what was heard on the Friday night kickoff.

The top-selling Bay Area band of all time — which consists of vocalist-guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo — was in excellent form on Night 1 of the London stand, treating a capacity crowd of highly appreciative metalheads to 16 numbers in a little less than two hours.

Following sets by Knocked Loose and Gojira — the latter being the best metal band on the planet not named Metallica — the headliners took to the stage and hit the crowd with a powerful version of the fan favorite “Creeping Death” from 1984’s iconic “Ride the Lightning.” They quickly followed up with another A-plus offering, the body-slamming “Harvester of Sorrow” from the towering achievement known as ” …And Justice for All” from 1988.

And that was all it took, really, for the band and its fans to once again achieve that awe-inspiring synergy, feeding off of each other’s energy and then pushing ever forward to collectively reach such impressive heights.

“Look at all this love for heavy metal in London,” Hetfield said to the fans near the start of the set. “Thank you for coming to the show. And I do like to say that it’s great when you support — you buy the albums, the CDs, whatever you do, buy the T-shirts.

“But this where it’s at. This is where we get to see the love and care in your faces and we get to give it right back to you. So we are grateful for you coming, taking the time and effort to get here to kick some ass.”

The setlist was similar to what Bay Area fans witnessed during the first half of the two-night stand at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara back in June 2025. Pretty much all of the big fan favorites made the trek across the pond, but the group did sub in a few different cuts, most notably being a great one-two punch combo of “Holier Than Thou” and “Of Wolf and Man” off 1991’s seminal self-titled album (aka “The Black Album”) early in the set.

And, of course, there was the spotlight on Hammett and Trujillo — which has become known as the “Kirk and Rob Doodle” segment — where Hetfield and Ulrich leave the stage and let the bassist and guitarist do basically anything they want. What they do changes from night to night, with the focus being coming up with something musical that ties in with wherever they are playing.

“We are at it again, celebrating music from your country,” Trujillo said as he huddled in the same area of the stage as Hammett. “And there’s so much to choose from.”

The result was a (very) rough, but pleasant enough mashup of Ian Dury’s “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” and The Clash’s “Guns of Brixton.” Here’s hoping that the duo turns to Spice Girls or Roxy Music — or, even better, both — for Sunday’s British music picks. As it stands right now, however, the top “Kirk and Rob Doodle” moment of the tour may well be when the duo unexpectedly jammed a fun instrumental version of the Dionne Warwick hit “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” right into “California Über Alles” from by The Dead Kennedys on Night 2 at Levi’s Stadium. That was most definitely a keeper.

Ulrich and Hetfield returned to a fray for the striking “Ride the Lightning” power ballad “Fade to Black,” which featured some of the most exquisite finger work of the night from Hammett. In general, the guitar slinger would once again use the set to underscore why he’s one of the top fret men in all of rock ‘n’ roll. Few have ever balanced power and purpose in such tastefully restrained manners as Kirk Hammett.

Metallica continued along its winning ways, moving through the likes of “Nothing Else Matters,” “Sad but True” and “Hardwired” as the four members worked from a huge stage that dominated the middle of the stadium’s floor. The stage is basically one big circular track, with a hollow space at its center dubbed “The Snake Pit” where even more ticketholders can be housed, and the bandmembers race around the track to entertain fans on different sides of the stadium. Even Ulrich gets in on the fun, working from four different kits that appear (then disappear) along the track. Fans further up in the stands get a good look at the action via eight tall video towers with wrap-around screens.

The show just kept right on building momentum as the band approached the finish line, moving from the fiery “Fuel” right into the equally heavy-hitting “Seek and Destroy,” before finally bringing the evening to a hugely satisfying close with the anthem “Master of Puppets.”

Then it was time to say — well, not goodbye, but rather see you soon. Because most of these fans will likely be back on Sunday to hear a completely new setlist of Metallica tunes on what will be the last night of longest tour of the the band’s career.

Metallica Setlist July 3, 2026

1. “Creeping Death”
2. “Harvester of Sorrow”
3. “Holier Than Thou”
4. “Of Wolf and Man”
5. “Lux Æterna”
6. “If Darkness Had a Son”
7. Kirk and Rob Doodle (“Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll”/“Guns of Brixton”)
8. “Fade to Black”
9. “Cyanide”
10. “Orion”
11. “Nothing Else Matters”
12. “Sad but True”
13. “Hardwired”
14. “Fuel”
15. “Seek & Destroy”
16. “Master of Puppets”