Metallica Playing Live Today At The NBA Finals
Metallica frontman and lead guitarist James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett will be playing live before the NBA finals game today before the Cleveland Cavaliers take on the Golden State Warriors in Game 5.
What does Metallica have to do with the NBA, you might ask? For the last few years, Metallica has been very supportive of the major San Francisco Bay Area professional teams. Since 2013, Metallica’s James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett have electrified audiences with their blistering rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” with appearances at the San Francisco Giants’ Metallica Day each season. The metal duo has also done the same a few times in what are termed Metallica Nights for the San Jose Sharks profession hockey team. Most recently, the Metallica guitarists opened up the X-Games in Austin, Texas, where most fans enjoyed the show when they weren’t getting their wheelchairs trampled.
On Metallica’s official website, the band excitedly commented on playing for the NBA Finals.
“We’re incredibly lucky to have another winning team here in the Bay Area as the Golden State Warriors took the NBA Western Conference title and are facing the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals! By now we’re guessing that you’ve noticed that we like to support our home sports teams, so to continue in that tradition James and Kirk will be on hand at Game 5 on Sunday, June 14th. They’ll be performing the National Anthem before the game as the Warriors resume their quest for the title back at home at Oracle Arena in Oakland, CA that night.
“Tune in to your local ABC station to watch the performance live, game time is 8:00 PM Eastern and GO DUBS!”
Here’s a rendition of the National Anthem by Kirk and James at a San Francisco Giants game.
Metallica has been having a busy summer. As previously mentioned, the band played the X-Games in Austin last week.
Metallica headlined the very first Rock N Rio festival in the United States in Las Vegas last month.
Looking forward to next month, Metallica is going to headline the Lollapalooza Festival in Chicago (whether organizer Perry Ferrel wants them there or not) with none other than Sir Paul McCartney, July 31 through August 2.
Metallica just released an enormous boxed set comprised of over 50 CDs documenting 25 shows in Australia and New Zealand between 2010 and 2013. Titled Metallica – 25 Nights Down Under, the set has already been shipped to fans who pre-ordered it.
All of this, of course, is happening while Metallica fans anxiously await the release of the band’s next album, something Metallica fans haven’t been able to experience since the release of 2008’s Death Magnetic. By most accounts, between all their special gigs and appearances playing the National Anthem, Metallica is supposedly recording that new album at their HQ recording facility near San Francisco.
[Photo by Jason O. Watson/Getty Images]
