Review: Metallica remains rock’s most admirable brotherhood during explosive, historic return to Tampa

When you’re James Hetfield and there’s 11 of something—including your own albums—it might end up leading to some confusion.

After getting through a duo of tracks from the band’s latest album 72 Seasons—its whammy bar-heavy title track, and the frenetic “If Darkness Had A Son”—the 61-year-old frontman announced that he was about to dust off a track from Metallica’s 2016 effort Hardwired…To Self-Destruct. “Go out and get it. We’ll wait!” he joked, following a less-than-excitable reaction from the packed crowd of over 60,000 metalheads (the tour behind that album didn’t stop in Tampa, so the joke was kinda on him).

From there, the biggest metal band of all time kicked off “Cyanide,” which actually appeared on Hardwired’s predecessor by eight years, Death Magnetic.

Opening night of any run is traditionally full of hiccups. And yet, in the five hours that some fans were inside Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium on Friday night, the metal icon mixing up two studio albums that aren’t quite as well-renowned as others wasn’t on the forefront of everyone’s minds.

In terms of the 130-minute, 16-song setlist, night one of Metallica’s weekend in Tampa (its first visit here since pushing Death Magnetic in 2009) was geared less towards a casual fan, but still not quite as filled to the brim with deep cuts as some ride-or-dies would want. But Tampatown is one of seven cities on the band’s current North American tour itinerary that gets the chance to experience two completely different shows in a weekend, so if you didn’t pull $140 out of your ass for a two-day pass, that’s on you, bud.

Before Hetfield and the boys could start to make up for 16 years worth of lost time, theatrical-AF Boston metal outfit Ice Nine Kills took heavy inspiration from the Alice Cooper playbook during a 40-minute opening set that included damsels in white dresses, black-and-white clowns, and a few murders on “Wurst Vacation.” The four-year-old, “Hostel”-inspired banger not only included a chainsaw, but with a victim being tied to a swivel chair and every band member dressed in a white shirt with suspenders, you’d begin to ponder why a heavy metal retelling of “Sweeney Todd” hasn’t been dreamt up yet.

An hour later, a blue-wigged Fred Durst and his ever-ridonkulous Jacksonville rap-rock outfit Limp Bizkit strutted out to the pinkest corner ever seen on a pre-Metallica stage (thanks, DJ Lethal’s turntable!) to rip into “Nookie.” The closest to a homecoming gig the quintet is going to get on this tour saw guitarist Wes Borland shred while hidden behind a skull and mohawk getup, while Durst spent time during and in between songs admitting how many tits in the crowd he had seen in the first five minutes of the set (spoiler alert: It was 11), announcing that Tom Cruise was somewhere in the house, and telling fans that he dared anyone’s weekend job boss to hit him up on Instagram tomorrow, should their faithful employees not show up to work.

His softie side did show near the end of the hour-long set, though. Durst invited a young, out-of-state fan onstage and got almost the whole band to sign the kid’s flat-billed cap. Later, he paid tribute to “the dead George Michael” with the Bizkit’s version of “Faith,” led in by a sample from the late Wham! frontman’s “Careless Whisper,” because of course.

At 8:45 p.m., “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)” by AC/DC (another iconic group that graced the same grounds less than a month ago) warned fans to get their asses to their seats, the graveyard scene from “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly” rolled, and our headliners wasted no further time, tearing straight into 1984’s “Creeping Death.”

Hetfield’s growl hasn’t waned at all, but it wasn’t until the second song, 1988’s “Harvester of Sorrow,” that his vocals were proven to be yet another part of him to age gracefully. And the divinity of pairing them with Kirk Hammett’s still-powerful-as-ever guitar licks remained fresh enough for older fans to feel like they were across the street again seeing the 1988 Monsters of Rock tour at the old Tampa Stadium, where they made their Tampa debut opening for Van Halen and Scorpions.

Hammett (who appears at the Hard Rock Event Center for a book talk this Saturday) seems to be in a perpetual classic horror movie hyperfix. Upon his own entry, he donned a classic “Nosferatu” t-shirt, and there were times where it felt like him and his Boris Karloff “The Mummy” ESP guitar were inseparable, which isn’t much of a shock, considering how Hammett has said that he has recorded countless songs with the axe.

Most of the basses that Robert Trujillo slapped had five strings, including the red one used on his instrumental “doodle” session with Hammett. And Lars Ulrich? Youthful as ever. You would never guess that Metallica’s co-main songwriting force (who was barely out of high school when the band first formed in 1981) is now eligible for just about any senior discount you can think of.

Hetfield also made it very clear that he’s incredibly humbled by his entire life, and the fact that he’s able to pack out a stadium. “I’m glad you’re here, because I don’t like celebrating music by myself,” he admitted. “Get that bad shit out, inhale your neighbor’s good shit, and then, we get to go home happier.”

The Cliff Burton-era instrumental “Orion” has evolved into a love letter to the late bassist. “We love and miss you, brother,” Hetfield solemnly declared before triggering a sea of cell phone lights on “Nothing Else Matters,” one of the greatest power ballads of the 1990s.

Closer to the end of the night, some Tampa history was blown up on the 360 degree, “in the round” stage’s surrounding cylindrical screens, too. The city’s flag got little to no recognition from the crowd (rightfully so, if you’re in the same camp as “Tampa Natives” show Mario Nuñez) when it was displayed at the start of “Blackened,” and for the first few seconds of “Seek & Destroy”—the earliest Metallica song played on opening night—a few distorted images of ticket stubs from Tampa shows past flashed by.

But by the time the lights came up just after 11:00 p.m., the elephant in the room was that there was no sign of “Enter Sandman” anywhere. While Hetfield recently admitted that he never thought the song was that great, Tampa being part of the collection of cities that are getting two, “no repeats” shows means that it’s probably very safe to assume that The Black Album’s opening track will close out Sunday night’s gig.

And even if not, with 11 albums under your belt, you forget about your least favorites sometimes, regardless of how beloved they actually are.

Metallica performs at Raymond James Stadium again this Sunday night, with Pantera and Suicidal Tendencies set to open at 6 p.m.

Metallica setlist at Raymond James Stadium on June 6, 2025
Creeping Death
Harvester of Sorrow
Leper Messiah
King Nothing
72 Seasons
If Darkness Had a Son
Kirk and Rob Doodle
(“Jalapeño Jam” and “Sleepwalk My Life Away”)
The Day That Never Comes
Cyanide
Orion
Nothing Else Matters
Sad but True
Blackened
Fuel
Seek & Destroy
Master of Puppets

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This article appears in Jun 5-11, 2025.