Metallica Is Putting Free Concerts Online: 6 Now Streaming, with More to Come

So, you pull up to the Metal­li­ca show and dou­ble check to make sure you have every­thing you need. Cash? Check. Change of clothes for when you stum­ble back to the car exhaust­ed and sweaty? Check. Earplugs? …. Where are the damn earplugs?

Oh man. You for­got the ear plugs.

Any­one got an extra pair of ear plugs? You’re boned. What to do? You’re gonna need your ears for the next few days for your sum­mer camp gig. Those kids are loud enough with­out tin­ni­tus.

You con­sid­er, for a split sec­ond, ditch­ing your tick­et and call­ing a cab. But c’mon. Screw your hear­ing, this is 1991, you’re in Muskegon, Michi­gan, and The Black Album just came out. You’re gonna miss the show? No way, man.

Ah, but it’s not 1991, you’re (prob­a­bly) not in Muskegon, Michi­gan, and you’re stay­ing home because there’s a dead­ly virus going around the world. The good news is you can still catch the show.

Watch it at the top, from the com­fort of your cozy nest. More good news? You don’t need those earplugs any­more. Turn it way down low and let “Enter Sand­man” lull you to sleep.

When you wake up, trav­el back to last June, to the love­ly Slane Cas­tle, to see Metal­li­ca play Meath, Ire­land, just above. Dime the vol­ume knob until your neigh­bors com­plain. Put on your head­phones and blast it till your ears bleed and you pass out. There’s more where that came from.

“Metal­li­ca may be stay­ing home due to the coro­n­avirus but that doesn’t mean they aren’t here to rock your face off,” Bill­board report­ed last month. “The band, who announced on Mon­day (March 23) that they have been forced to post­pone a sched­uled South Amer­i­can spring tour…. Just launched a new week­ly con­cert series called Metal­li­ca Mon­days.”

This announce­ment being sev­er­al weeks ago, there are now sev­er­al con­certs post­ed on the band’s YouTube chan­nel—six at this moment, includ­ing a 2009 gig in Copen­hagen, Den­mark, one of many places where Metallica’s loud, fast (till The Black Album), death-obsessed thrash met­al trav­eled and trans­formed into even loud­er, faster, more death-obsessed met­al sub­gen­res.

Maybe you were at one of these shows? If so, relive the glo­ry. If you’ve nev­er seen the band live, know that this is but a pale imi­ta­tion, as are all filmed con­certs, whether you stream them on your smart­phone or your 85” TV. But if you want to know what it was like for that kid in Muskegon who for­got his ear plugs, try that head­phone trick. Then head over to Metallica’s YouTube chan­nel on Mon­day for the next show.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Metallica’s “Enter Sand­man” Sung in the Style of David Bowie

Metallica’s Bassist Robert Tru­jil­lo Plays Metal­li­ca Songs Fla­men­co-Style, Joined by Rodri­go y Gabriela

Pink Floyd Stream­ing Free Clas­sic Con­cert Films, Start­ing with 1994’s Pulse, the First Live Per­for­mance of Dark Side of the Moon in Full

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness