Metallica

In late 1982, Metallica played their 27th show at a club in San Fransisco. One Classic Rock writer got there by accident

In 2011, Metallica finally unearthed their bittersweet tribute to late bassist Cliff Burton in front of one very intimate audience

From Metallica’s …And Justice For All to Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other, these masterpieces are so good that live crowds need to hear them in their entirety

In 2001, Metallica hired an old army barracks in California to try and record album eight. The songs were scrapped when James Hetfield entered rehab, but countless fans still want to hear them finished.

With James Hetfield injured, Metallica put Jason Newsted on vocals, covered Cheech & Chong and performed with nu metal’s finest for a trio of bizarre 2000 concerts

Prog rockers Jethro Tull pipped Metallica to win Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Recording award in 1989, and people are still talking about it

With a little help from astrophysics, Ice-T and Heart, Metallica came up with Enter Sandman, their best-known song and a heavy metal classic

From James Hetfield to Randy Blythe, we’d love to see what these heavy metal heroes can do by themselves

From Avenged Sevenfold to Evile, many have used the Four Horsemen’s influence to pen some similar yet still-incredible anthems

Metallica have never covered Saxon on record – could an incident at their second ever show explain why?

In 1998, a Metallica megafan called Aaron got the opportunity of a lifetime: singing Creeping Death with his favourite band on national TV

They’re the biggest band in metal, beloved all over the world – but even Metallica have their duff moments

Bassist Jason Newsted left Metallica on January 17, 2001. Six weeks earlier, he’d played his last show with the thrash metal titans, where he very literally waved goodbye.

When thrash's Big Four rolled into Warsaw in June 2010, heavy metal history was made