Metallica Invites Fans To Pick Local Opening Bands In ‘Hit The Stage’ Contest – Vote Now

Metallica is inviting their fans to pick local opening bands for the North American summer leg of their “Hardwired WorldWired Tour.” Metallica made the announcement via their website, stating that they had a blast doing this very same thing in Mexico and Central America, and now there is an opportunity to do it in North America as well.

For the summer, North American leg of their “Hardwired WorldWired Tour,” Metallica already has a heavy-hitting cadre of opening acts, including Avenged Sevenfold, Volbeat, and Gojira. However, as explained on the Metallica website, there are five dates on the WorldWired tour in which only one of those bands is able to fill the opening slots. Those cities include Chicago, Foxborough, St. Louis, San Antonio, and Dallas. To give a little more heft to those five shows, Metallica has decided to include a local band from one of those five cities in the opening slot on all five shows, and they are allowing their fans to decide which band it will be.

Okay, so here’s the way it works. According to the Metallica website, there are two phases to voting for the band that will fill the five opening slots on the “Hardwired WorldWired Tour.” The first phase included going to a rock radio station website in some of the five cities that have the availability for an opening act. Once there, fans could vote for a local band. For example, if you went to the radio station website for Chicago, WLUP, you could vote for one of several, local Chicago bands to open for Metallica.

Some of the bands you could have voted for include Local H, As Above/So Below, Warbeast, Jibe, Secret of Boris, Little Green Men, Cutthroat Conspiracy, Dear Deadly, Wings of Severance, Stellar West, Texas Toast Chainsaw Massacre, Pawns of Christ, Coldcasket, Whiskey Ignition, Shattered Sun, and many others.

The second phase of choosing Metallica’s opening act is now active. The four radio stations have tabulated the top two winners in each of the contests. Metallica fans can now vote between the top bands on its official website, and the winning band will start opening for Metallica on the first stop of the North American “Hardwired WorldWired Tour” at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

The Hit the Stage finalists are Blood People, Local H, Hallow Point, TROY (The Reality of Yourself), Immortal Guardian, Shattered Sun, Mothership, and Messer.

For the North American leg of the “Hardwired WorldWired Tour,” Metallica is exclusively playing enormous stadiums, and the tour is just about sold out. Earlier this year, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich talked about playing stadiums again and promised that there would be some new and unusual treats for fans. The Metallica drummer stated that he didn’t just want a static stage at one end of the stadium and that ideas were being bandied about as to how to make the “Hardwired WorldWired Tour” unique.

Metallica broke the mold on touring when they toured for their self-titled album (often referred to as The Black Album) in the early 1990s. On that tour, which spanned not months but years, Metallica utilized a diamond-shaped stage that offered almost 360 degrees of fan accessibility. In addition to that, Metallica created the Snake Pit in the center of the diamond, offering extremely lucky fans an “inside-looking-out” vantage point. To top it off, drummer Lars Ulrich also had two drum sets that slowly moved around the edge of the stage, no longer limiting him to one fixed position on the stage.

For the last few tours, Metallica has employed a center, square stage for their performances, offering many, many more general admission ticket holders an opportunity to be much closer to the band from all four sides of the stage.

Metallica’s “Hardwired WorldWired Tour” starts in May and winds its way across North America throughout the summer.

[Featured Image by Mauricio Santana/Getty Images]