Metal giant due in Vegas
Multiple media networks, including genre-specific news sites Metal Injection and Loudwire, have thrilled Metallica fans by announcing the thrash metal pioneers are “about 90% there” to inking a Las Vegas Sphere residency for 2027.
forerunner to an imminent announcement
According to reports, fans of the band have been fast and enthusiastic in their response to Metallica’s “done deal” to secure residency. While no contract has reportedly yet been signed between the Sphere and Metallica, the chatter on social media appears to be a strategic marketing forerunner to an imminent announcement.
In addition, the band has long expressed its desire to perform at The Sphere.
Declaration of intent
While downplaying rumors of Metallica’s Sphere gig last August, the band’s co-founder and drummer Lars Ulrich told The Howard Stern Show that “we’re all such fans of this venue.”
“It’s something that we’re looking at at some point when the 2026 tour is done,” reported Parade.
Ulrich upped the ante by stating he had been “completely blown away” after attending U2’s opening night “and felt that was the beginning of another chapter in live performances.”
The drummer told Stern in August: “I’m not going to bullshit you, I would f**king love to do it, let there be no question about it.” The virtually nailed-on residency would place Metallica inside one of the world’s most technologically thrilling venues, an opportunity not lost on the band’s bassist, Robert Trujillo.
“I love the visual experience. We have talked about it, we’ve met, had meetings about it. And I’m already thinking, like, ‘Imagine this, imagine that,’ ‘cause Metallica’s music is so visual.”
Trujillo, who has been with Metallica over two decades, was already thinking of how the band’s Orion would go down with the Sphere crowd, adding “the possibilities are endless.”
To the max
Trujillo summed up the expectancy around Metallica’s gig as that no “heavy rock band” has yet played at the Sphere.
Metallica is, of course, no ordinary heavy rock band, and has a decades-long playlist of critically acclaimed music waiting to light up Las Vegas, just like the band did in Moscow back in 1991:
Country and western act Zac Brown created a “Satanic” stir with its Sphere show, which music insiders say was merely a tribute to Iron Maiden. Metallica is, however, one of those all-time-great bands others pay tribute to, and is as far away from country music as Orion is from Georgia.
With the best part of a year left for Ulrich, Trujillo, James Hetfield, and other band members to plot a residency that could add another caveat to Metallica’s legacy, Vegas should brace itself.
