No Repeats, No Regrets: Metallica Catches Lightning in Arlington, Twice

“What else should we play?” James Hetfield grinned late Sunday night at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. “Have we played your favorite song yet?”

It was a fair question given the unique format of Metallica’s two-night stand, split across three evenings. The iconic Bay Area band ripped through 32 songs in total, touching down on every point from its vast catalog, from 1983's Kill 'Em All through this year's surprising 72 Seasons. No repeats. No regrets.

72 Seasons, Metallica's 11th album, is like Rogue One to the original Star Wars, a dark epic that fits within but exists decidedly outside of the band's early thrash-and-burn trilogy: 1984’s Ride the Lightning, 1986’s Master of Puppets, and 1988’s …And Justice for All. After years, if not decades of misfires, Metallica stopped chasing trends with 2008 reboot Death Magnetic and fully embraced what made them undeniable. 72 Seasons is all thunder and lightning, with drummer Lars Ulrich and bassist Robert Trujillo in a constant chariot race against guitarists James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett, as if trying to escape Hetfield's inner turmoil.

“Facing my demons, now I know,” bellowed Hetfield Friday night. “If I run, still my shadows follow.”

“Metallica was put on this Earth to do exactly this,” acknowledged Hetfield later that evening, “and we are grateful.”

Part of what made the weekend so special was the programming: two completely different sets and completely different openers: Mammoth WVH and Pantera on Friday, and Ice Nine Kills and Five Finger Death Punch on Sunday.

Equal parts tribute and threat, the reunited Pantera – with Zakk Wylde, heavy metal's greatest stand-in guitarist, and Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante in place of late brothers Dimebag Darrell and Vinne Paul, respectively – made the most of the homecoming. The Arlington-bred band, resuscitated by bassist Rex Brown and singer Phil Anselmo, rattled off classics like "Walk" and "Cowboys From Hell" with vintage menace – still powerful, just less vulgar this time around. Anselmo, in particular, seemed genuinely moved by the gravity of the situation.

“We very cautiously decided to do experiences,” Ulrich told Rolling Stone during their 2017 WorldWired tour. “We spent a lot of time seeing what everybody else was doing. ‘What’s Black Sabbath doing? What’s Guns N’ Roses doing? What happens in the pop world?’ It felt foreign to us and, dare I say, a little hokey. So we just had to sort of get to a place where we would get comfortable with that.”

Post-pandemic – and in the summer of Taylor Swift's Eras and Beyoncé Renaissance tours – the stakes have been raised considerably. And Metallica met the moment. The takeover weekend featured a pop-up store in downtown Dallas, local screenings of classic Metallica concert films, and a curated collection of metal bills around town. More importantly, both evenings were broadcast live worldwide, including five theaters in Austin alone.

Then there's the stage itself. Metallica played in the round to roughly 100,000 each night – about 20,000 more than Swift's recent visit – utilizing a massive donut-shaped ring, with fans in- and outside of it, that Hammett practically ran laps around. Four separate drum risers allowed Ulrich to face each direction of AT&T Stadium. His rotation broke each evening into four distinct acts.

Both nights opened at escape velocity: Friday chased “Creeping Death” with “Harvester of Sorrow;” Sunday erupted with “Whiplash” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” which Hammett weaved straight into “Ride the Lightning.” The second act leaned into 72 Seasons, while the third focused primarily on the ballads – with Death Magnetic’s “The Day That Never Comes” carrying nearly as much weight as “Nothing Else Matters” and “Sad But True” on Friday – and the fourth act closed the evening with all the subtlety of a battering ram.

While the setlists didn’t overlap, there was plenty of symmetry. Both nights featured exactly 16 songs; extended instrumental tributes to original bassist Cliff Burton in the form of Master of Puppets' "Orion" and Ride the Lightning’s “The Call of Ktulu”; a new jam between just Hammett and Trujillo; a drop of massive, black-and-yellow beach balls in the final act (“Seek & Destroy” on Friday, "Whiskey in the Jar" on Sunday); and a pyro display you felt on your eyebrows, synced to a thrilling “Fuel” and “Moth Into Flame,” respectively.

Given 72 Seasons' gargantuan runtime – 77 minutes, same as 2016's Hardwired... to Self-Destruct – Metallica had plenty more to give each night. The format of the mini-residency, with the band's greatest hits equally divided over two hours both evenings, undoubtedly left some feeling short-changed. But it also afforded the opportunity to dig deeper into the catalog, most notably with “Leper Messiah” and Load's "King Nothing" on Friday.

Would I have preferred one all-encompassing three-hour set? It certainly would’ve been more convenient. And even Metallica found at least one bit of “You Must Burn!” forgettable. “We left out a whole part. How unprofessional,” admonished Hetfield, before the band completed a do-over of the missing section. “Just put that part in your head and into the song.”

Even still, for those lucky enough to attend both shows – the majority of the crowd actually, judging from their response to Hetfield's questioning on Sunday – it was impossible to leave unsatisfied. Or without a sore neck come Monday morning.

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Correction, August 21: An earlier version of this story misstated which Metallica albums the setlist songs “Orion” (off 1986’s Master of Puppets) and “Too Far Gone?” (off 2023’s 72 Seasons) are from.

Correction, August 23: This story also misstated that Pantera played "Cemetery Gates," and which song Metallica "completed a do-over" on.