As much as metal likes to position itself as a countercultural force, there’s no ignoring all the times it’s barraged its way into the mainstream. And fewer instances of heavy music smashing into the ears of mainstream listeners are more apparent than when one of its bands makes it onto prime-time TV. On both sides of the Atlantic, hard-hitting behemoths from Metallica to Gojira have made it onto enviable late-night slots, and these are the best performances to have come from such opportunities. Below, Hammer’s listed the 10 greatest heavy metal showcases in the history of late-night television.
‘Metallica Week’ (The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, 2014)
Always eager to up the ante, Metallica weren’t content with just one performance on Craig Ferguson’s talk show in 2014. Instead, the Four Horsemen commandeered The Late Late Show for ‘Metallica Week’, filling the musician guest slot for five days on the trot. Powerhouse renditions of Hit The Lights, Fuel, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Enter Sandman and Sad But True made the gamble pay off.
Slipknot – Wait And Bleed (Late Night With Conan O’Brien, 2000)
With their incensed nu metal and anarchic live shows (which sometimes included setting people on fire), Slipknot were the most dangerous band in the world in 2000. The fact that talk show king Conan O’Brien gave them the thumbs-up to appear on Late Night, then, is nothing short of miraculous. You can easily imagine what mainstream America thought of Wait And Bleed being blasted into their living rooms…
Disturbed – The Sound Of Silence (Conan, 2016)
When Disturbed briefly ditched barrel-chested metal for a bombastic redo of The Sound Of Silence, it instantly became one of their biggest hits. Want proof? Their stop by Conan to perform the song is the most-watched video on the TV show’s YouTube channel. “I always knew that heavy metal band covers of Simon & Garfunkel songs would be my legacy,” O’Brien later joked on Twitter.
Slayer – Raining Blood (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, 2017)
We didn’t know it at the time but, in October 2017, the world was mere weeks from Slayer announcing their retirement tour. Thrash metal’s evilest band eventually hanging up their guitars and gauntlets made that month’s Jimmy Fallon appearance the last time they’d play a late-night show, and they bowed out in unfettered, hellish form. Raining Blood sounded just as sacrilegious here as it did in 1986.
Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name (The Word, 1993)
Rage Against The Machine were countercultural icons during the early ’90s, so of course the UK’s ever-rebellious Channel 4 welcomed the rap metal juggernaut with open arms. Zack De La Rocha, Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford stormed the stage of late-night show The Word to play a particularly pissed-off Killing In The Name in 1993, aptly introduced by host Mark Lamarr throwing viewers a one-finger salute.
Ghost – Cirice (The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, 2015)
Ghost’s appearance on The Late Show marked their US TV debut, and they refused to temper their subversive ways for the mass media. Never scared to throw barbs at Christianity, the band added some pointed theatre to their performance, with Papa Emeritus placing his hand on the chest of a worshipper to make her convulse and faint. Intelligent viewers instantly knew it was a well-deserved swipe at American televangelists.
Sepultura – Refuse/Resist (The Word, 1994)
As if getting Rage Against The Machine wasn’t badass enough! One year later, Channel 4’s The Word didn’t just re-embrace heavy metal; they doubled down on how extreme they were willing to go, tapping Sepultura to perform a particularly fast-paced tear through Refuse/Resist. Along with Slipknot’s infamous showcase on TFI Friday in 1999, this may be the most metal moment in British TV history.
Gojira – Amazonia (Quotidien, 2021)
Gojira released their latest album, Fortitude, in March 2021: a time when the pandemic was still wreaking havoc on live music. As a result, the first time anyone saw the band perform music off of it was during this appearance on French news/talk show Quotidien, where they near-demolished the studio with an abridged and hefty-sounding Amazonia. Everyone’s impatience to see Gojira live again only grew that day…
Evanescence feat. Paul McCoy – Bring Me To Life (The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, 2003)
Infamously, Evanescence’s record label wanted breakout single Bring Me To Life to include male rapping vocals, likely to align the band more with the nu metal takeover. Amy Lee and company have since eschewed that addition on live performances of the megahit. That makes this Jay Leno appearance (with 12 Stones frontman Paul McCoy) one of the rare times you’ll hear the studio version of Bring Me… faithfully recreated.
Mastodon – Colony Of Birchmen (Late Night With Conan O’Brien, 2006)
Before The Hunter and well before their 2018 Grammy win, Mastodon were very much fringe players in American metal, specialising in a progressive and brutal form of sludge. That didn’t stop heavy music’s mainstream champion Conan O’Brien from placing them on his stage, however. The Atlantans decimated Late Night with riffathon Colony Of Birchmen in 2006, while Troy Sanders’ and Brent Hinds’ intertwining vocals demonstrated some crowd-pleasing potential.
