Metallica to kick off a 30-day virtual tour this weekend

Metallica have teamed up with New York radio station SiriusXM to launch a 30-date virtual Metallica tour.

The tour begins this Friday May 1 (at approx. 11pm AEST). It’ll be broadcast via Mandatory Metallica, the band’s own digital channel on the SiriusXM service. For 30 consecutive days the station will play a full concert recording of the band, including their 2013 show at the Apollo Theater in New York City and 2016 concert in New York City’s Webster Hall.

In addition to the daily concert recordings, the revived channel will be playing Metallica songs, rarities and commentary from the band members. Drummer Lars Ulrich will also present an exclusive stay-at-home DJ set titled Welcome Home.

Watch: Lars Ulrich – What’s In My Bag?

SiriusXM is only available to US and Canadian listeners (so this means you’ll have to get crafty, VPN nerds). But you can still head to Metallica’s YouTube channel for a whole bunch of live performance material. The band started hosting Metallica Mondays back in March after the cancellation of their upcoming tour dates.

They’ve since been streaming a full concert every Monday. So far they’ve run through Live at Slane Castle (2019), Live in Paris (2017), Live in Copenhagen (2009), Live at Outside Lands, San Francisco (2017), Live in Munich (2015) and Live in Muskegon, Michigan (1991).

Watch: Metallica – One (Live in Helsinki, 2018)

That’s not all they’ve been doing in isolation, either. In early April the band’s All Within My Hands Foundation announced a $350,000 donation to be split between four organisations on the frontline of the coronavirus crisis. And earlier this week Ulrich hinted a new Metallica album could surface at the other side of lockdown.

“The people that make the software and all the stuff that we use to record are sitting right now trying to figure out how [me] and James [Hetfield, vocals] and Kirk [Hammett, guitar] and Rob [Trujillo, bass] can make a Metallica record from four different locations in four different states. That’s obviously something that we’re very excited about,” said Ulrich.

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