602. Metallica / 2011-12-09: The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA, USA. 2011. 4/5

This is the third of four nights that Metallica played as their 30th Anniversary celebrations, bringing together old band mates and musician friends to have a rocking old time.
All four nights had a similar theme and arrangement, though with different songs and guests.

Each night started with an instrumental, and the third night was only the second time ever that "Suicide & Redemption", was played live.
For the 'back catalogue collection' on this evening, well... what more could you ask for really. "Master of Puppets", "... And Justice For All", "Of Wolf and Man", "Fade to Black" and "The Thing That Should Not Be", all awesome songs. These were followed by "I Disappear" and "The Outlaw Torn"

Then came the "new song" of the night, one of the four songs that had come from the Death Magnetic sessions but not made the cut for the album. All four were later released on the Beyond Magnetic EP. Tonight's addition was "Hell and Back", which is listenable enough, if overdrawn.

From here we move into the 'special guests' stage of the evening. First was another member of Metallica's 'MetClub' fan club, Joseph Guariglia, who came up to play on "Blitzkrieg". This was followed by Jerry Cantrell from Alice In Chains coming out to help with two songs, "For Whom The Bell Tolls", and vocal harmonies on "Nothing Else Matters".
Animal from Anti-Nowhere League came out to sing his standard "So What" before Cantrell returned with Pepper Keenan from Down, big Jim Martin from Faith No More, and Gary Rossington from Lynard Skynard to do the Skynard song "Tuesday's Gone" which Metallica had covered on the Garage Inc. album.
Jason Newsted returned for his third night in succession, this time to belt out crowd favourites "Fuel" and "Fight Fire With Fire".

Tonight's main event was the arrival of Glenn Danzig to help perform Metallica's favourite Misfits covers, those of course being "Die, Die My Darling", "Last Caress" and "Green Hell". It's great to hear the great man with the band behind him.

Can you top that? Well, you go close when you bring out the Godfather, Judas Priest's Rob Halford, to perform "Rapid Fire". Brilliant stuff.

The evening finished with an all-star jam, everyone from the night coming together to play the party encore, "Seek & Destroy".

Once again, the night was an eclectic affair, with something for everyone. The recording shows it off well, as an historic moment in the band's career.