Metal
Metallica played “Devil’s Dance” on Saturday 3 October at the Sphere in Las Vegas. They had not played it since 7 June 2008: eighteen years and almost four months.
It comes from “ReLoad” (1997) and the documented performances do not reach fifty, spread across thirty years of shows.
The night was the second of the Life Burns Faster residency, which opened on Thursday 1 October, and the whole setlist had been changed: “Blackened”, “Fuel”, “Leper Messiah”, “Devil’s Dance”, “72 Seasons”, “King Nothing”, “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”, “The Outlaw Torn”, a Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo doodle, “The Unforgiven”, “Orion”, “Hardwired”, “Whiskey In The Jar”, “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, “One” and “Enter Sandman”. Before walking on they let AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll)” and Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy Of Gold” play over the PA.
“The Outlaw Torn” had not been heard since 8 September 2019, and “Blackened” had not opened a show since 9 August 2014.
The residency alternates setlists between Thursdays and Saturdays and runs to 13 March 2027. Only fan-shot video of the 3 October show has circulated; it ran one hour and fifty-five minutes.
Text by Roger Estivill