The previous world tour, which began in 2016 before being interrupted in 2020 due to the health crisis, brought in more than $400 million, according to Forbes magazine.

"Metallica is part of a limited number of locomotives, all music combined, which interests a wider audience than its die-hard fans," Ben Barbaud, boss of Hellfest, a French festival dedicated to metal (420,000 spectators last year), told AFP.

The Californian quartet has managed to "transcend genres, playing Freddie Mercury's tribute concert while he comes from metal," said Luc Frelon, programmer of the French web radio Fip Metal.

"There is not necessarily an equivalent, which raises the question of the renewal of the metal scene, which does not have such an iconic succession," he continues.

Ben Barbaud remembers musicians "relaxed" although surrounded by "an impressive machine, a team close to a hundred people".

Ultra-VIP Pass

Noblesse oblige, for the next tour of the stadiums, the ultra-VIP pass is more than 7,000 dollars for eight people and two evenings.

Because the Californian formation sees double each time in this tour, passing to the Stade de France, in Saint-Denis north of Paris, on May 17 and 19.

Singer and guitarist James Hetfield, during the band Metallica concert at the Hellfest festival, on June 26, 2022 in Clisson, west France © Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / AFP/Archives

"It has become a kind of monster of rock-business on tour, the members of the band may have lost the hand to a giant management, even if I am the first to go to the two evenings of the Stade de France", comments Luc Frelon.

Nothing to do, therefore, with the time of the first album in 1983 ("Kill 'em all", "Kill them all") and the niche where they appear, that of thrash metal, not the most accessible musically.

Recently, the group even bought a vinyl pressing plant for its own needs, while this medium has just surpassed CD sales for the first time in the United States.

The lives of the founding members, James Hetfield, singer and guitarist, and Lars Ulrich, drummer, soon to be in their sixties, changed in 1991 with what is now called the "Black Album".

Drummer Lars Ulrich during the band Metallica concert at the Hellfest festival, on June 26, 2023 in Clisson, western France © Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / AFP/Archives

This 5th opus allows them to reach the general public, with the hits "Enter sandman" and "Nothing else matters". Respectively a little more and a little less than a billion listens on Spotify, leader of music platforms.

In a series

"Metallica has participated in the democratization of metal in countries like the France which has long been a blockade while in the Nordic countries metal is part of popular culture, (the telecrochet) The Voice welcoming metal singers," Pierre Pauly, programmer of the Francofolies, told AFP.

This general French festival also offers a metal night since 2019 alongside family headliners.

The song "Master of puppets" (1986) even made it into the hit Netflix series "Stranger Things."

James Hetfield (l) and Lars Ulrich (r) at the Metallica concert in Central Park on September 24, 2022 in New York © ANGELA WEISS / AFP/Archives

Sign of their status, to listen upstream "72 seasons", which comes out this Friday, the critics had to comply with the same constraints as for the last Adele: leave their phone in the locker room in the record company and sign a waiver of confidentiality before lifting embargo. While for most artists, records or listening links are transmitted to the press upstream.

Fans and curious people will be able to listen to it the day before its release in some requisitioned cinemas around the world. And discover the 12 titles, including several calibrated for stadiums, such as "You must burn!".

"It's one of the great bands that continues to release records that stand, there are seven or eight really strong even if they are sometimes too talkative," describes Luc Frelon. The album ends with a piece of bravery, "Inamorata", more than 11 minutes.

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© 2023 AFP