Review: Metallica Lit Up Empower Field With Limp Bizkit

The biggest metal band on the planet has taken over Denver, as Metallica officially landed at the fifty-yard-line of Empower Field on June 27 for the first set of its No Repeat Weekend.

More than 75,000 fervent fans, which marked an official sellout, bore witness to the epic show that showcased just why the four horsemen of thrash remain at the top of the heap. Friday’s sixteen-song setlist explored more of Metallica’s 1990s and 2000s catalog, though guitarist-vocalist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo dipped into that deep 1980s well of stone-cold classics, opening with “Creeping Death,” then “Harvester of Sorrow.”
Of course, there are all-time songs sprinkled throughout the entire discography. “King Nothing” and “Fuel” from Load and Reload, “Cyanide” and “The Day That Never Comes” from Death Magnetic. Then there’s the latest album, 72 Seasons, which kicked off the current M72 globetrotting run in April 2023, featuring the popular title track and “If Darkness Had a Son.” And there were the mega-hit Metallica songs that make up the very bedrock of thrash and modern rock. The Bay Area behemoth conjured up a trio of Black Album bangers — “Nothing Else Matters,” “Holier Than Thou,” and “Sad but True.” The band also dedicated the epic instrumental “Orion” to the late Cliff Burton, Metallica’s original god-tier bassist, who died tragically during a bus accident in 1986.

“We love you, and we miss you, brother,” Hetfield shared, as he blew a kiss skyward.
In ending the night, the band blew through “Battery,” the headbanging-inducing sonic blast first featured on the flawless ’86 album, Master of Puppets. Then Metallica even went back to the beginning with “Seek & Destroy,” complete with the customary oversized beach balls, from its 1983 debut, Kill ’Em All. Then there was the closer, “Master of Puppets." Like, come on, name a more iconic thrash song.

I mean, it’s fuckin’ Metallica. It’s the band that wrote the blueprint for thrash before anyone even knew what to call it back in the early ’80s. The fact that almost everyone considers that common knowledge is a testament to the Metallica machine, and more importantly, the output that’s garnered such a wide-ranging following.

There are very few bands — and virtually no metal acts — that can fill a football stadium, let alone for two nights a pop. But Metallica is essentially the Taylor Swift of this long-held subgenre. That’s not a knock on the band or Swifties, but to say Metallica fans are legion, and are as loyal as any at this point. To see them live and in the flesh for the first time can only be called a religious experience for this metal-mad writer.

“Welcome to the Metallica family. Whether you like it or not, you're in,” Hetfield said at one point to all the concert newbies.
The M72 festivities first kicked off on Thursday, June 26, when the official pop-up shop full of exclusive merch opened at the Sports Castle and the local supporter group, Welcome Home (Colorado), hosted a pre-party at Black Sky Brewery. Shout-out to Rob Seeley, the Metclub chapter president, and the Black Sky staff for putting on a killer metal mixer.

There was also a blood drive, a collaboration between the band’s All Within My Hands foundation and the American Red Cross, earlier in the week that was reportedly the largest in Denver Red Cross history. And some people still think metalheads are selfish.

While the performance — which includes a massive stage production, complete with eight sound-video towers and a circular stage encompassing mid-field — is the reason everyone gathers, the nightly setlists felt almost secondary to the Metallica community itself. Westword ran into fans who have seen the band dozens of times, often following Metallica around the world, and flew in from all corners of the country to catch the Denver dates. The hometown metal community also showed out, as it’s been over eight years since ’Tallica played here. That’s a lot of pent-up energy that finally found a release Friday night.
Openers Ice Nine Kills and Limp Bizkit warmed up the audience properly. Limp Bizkit brought all the dad vibes. (We’re not referencing the aging Gen Xers and Millennials who make up most of the group’s fanbase nowadays, but the first song.) As one of the biggest nu-metal acts of the new millennium, Limp Bizkit wasted no time in taking everyone back to Y2K, playing six songs from its watershed 2000 record, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. Frontman Fred Durst pulled a fan wearing a backwards red Yankees hat on stage for an impromptu duet during “Full Nelson” (her mouth wrote a check her ass definitely cashed). That was followed by “Hot Dog” (Durst pointed out another Limp Bizkit die-hard dressed up as a hot dog raging in the snake pit), “My Way,” “My Generation,” “Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle)” and “Take a Look Around” (Durst dedicated the Mission: Impossible 2 track to Tom Cruise, the lead of the 2000 action thriller).

“Nookie” and “Break Stuff,” the raucous closer, also got the crowd going. Eccentric guitarist Wes Borland, or Wes Hetfield as he went by on Friday, played the entire ten-song set dressed up as a skull-faced version of 1980s James Hetfield, Ride the Lightning cut-off, white high-tops and all.
And that wasn’t the only costume change on stage, as opener Ice Nine Kills displayed its horror-obsessed pageantry across nine songs, including “Hip to Be Scared” (aka a Patrick Bateman from American Psycho homage), Terrifer tune “A Work of Art” (Art the Clown even sat in on drums after going on a mini-killing spree) and “Welcome to Horrorwood” (the band’s meta masterpiece about creating murderous music).

But the craziest thing about the concert is that Metallica is going to do it all over on Sunday, June 29, and with a different setlist and openers Suicidal Tendencies and Pantera. So stay tuned for another mind-blowing Metallica installation and be ready to ride the lightning.

See more photos from the June 27 show below: Find more concerts on our Denver concert calendar.