Metallica broke the seal on their 2025 M72 Tour Saturday night (4/19) at the JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse.

Since it kicked off exactly two years ago in 2023 in Holland, the M72 Tour has sold approximately three million tickets.

Not too shabby for four 60-year-olds, two of whom now have short hair.

The reason the tour has been so successful is because these Rock Hall of Famers still bring it, with gusto.

But also, they have remained true to their no-repeat weekends where they play a pair of nights in a city and perform two totally different setlists. So if you hear "One" on Friday, you won't hear it on Sunday.

As simple as that sounds, when Tool advertised something similar and reneged, their fans were furious because Metallica had set the bar.

Saturday's tour opener was not a no-repeat show. The event was only date they were to play at the domed home of the Syracuse Orangemen football and basketball teams, so the set was chock-full of hits since nothing had to be saved for later.

The quartet drew 47,500 fans at the giant stadium once called the Carrier Dome. The show set a record as the most-ticketed show in Syracuse history.

The previous record of 47,319 was set by The Who in December of 1982 during their first Farewell Tour.

Part of the way Metallica were able to squeeze a few more fans into the dome than the Brits who wrote "Squeeze Box" was because these M72 shows are largely in-the-round.

The benefit of that is all the cheap seats in the sky can be filled as there's no dead seats behind the stage - because the stage is just a wide, elevated ribbon where guitarists James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett along with bassist Robert Trujillo can roam at their will while Lars Ulrich keeps the beat from his perch.

Metallica also incorporates a phalanx of tall video screens high in the sky, circling the bowl below. This makes it nearly impossible to have either a bad seat or miss one of James' growls or Kirk's leads.

And when you provide that sort of fan experience, it makes it easier to sell out two dates for the no-repeat engagements (like they'll do next on Thursday and Saturday at the Rogers Centre in Toronto) because fans can buy a ticket close to the stage for one show and save a few bucks and sit in the sky for the second gig.

Despite it being a hits-heavy show (and who's complaining?), early in the set Metallica dusted off an early banger from Ride The Lightning, "Hit The Lights." Back in 1982 when they live debuted the song there were very few recordings that were this fast and tight.

Speaking for myself, when I first heard it on our high school marching band school bus, I thought the tape had sped up. For context, AC/DC's Back In Black was still in heavy rotation among many of us in the drum line. This was at least 2x that tempo.

An extremely unscientific metric in determining the popularity of the songs in a playlist would be views on YouTube.

Not that Metallica were a music video band, but after they broke through on MTV with "One," they proved they could compete on the idiot box as well as in the rock festival. Either way, it's interesting to see how few some of their songs, like "Hit the Lights" perform on YouTube compared to hits like "Nothing Else Matters" which has broken a billion.

The songs Metallica performed at the JMA Wireless Dome: "Creeping Death" (19 million views), "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (19 million), "Hit the Lights" (3.5 million), "King Nothing" (13 million), "Lux Æterna" (10 million), "Screaming Suicide" (7.8 million), "The Day That Never Comes" (83 million), "Fuel" (14 million), "Orion" (21 million), "Nothing Else Matters" (1.4 billion), "Sad but True" (80 million), "One" (348 million), "Seek & Destroy" (60 million), "Master of Puppets" (200 million), and "Enter Sandman" (714 million).

It's good to see these numbers because when you see the band play a tune like "Hit The Lights," it makes you know it's because they want to do it despite the numbers being low.

Perhaps they're thanking their fans who have been with them for over 40 years.

Maybe they do it to remind themselves how far they've come. Still breaking records at 60, including that big one that was set when "Hit The Lights" was one of their calling cards.

Metallica heads to Toronto to rock two nights at the home of the Blue Jays. Then two shows in Nashville's football stadium, then over to Virginia.

Get your tickets on the Metallica website.

Metallica — 2025 Tour Dates
April 24 Toronto, ON Rogers Centre *
April 26 Toronto, ON Rogers Centre +
May 1 Nashville, TN Nissan Stadium *
May 3 Nashville, TN Nissan Stadium +
May 7 Blacksburg, VA Lane Stadium *
May 9 Columbus, OH Sonic Temple @ Historic Crew Stadium
May 11 Columbus, OH Sonic Temple @ Historic Crew Stadium
May 23 Philadelphia, PA Lincoln Financial Field +
May 25 Philadelphia, PA Lincoln Financial Field *
May 28 Landover, MD Northwest Stadium *
May 31 Charlotte, NC Bank of America Stadium *
June 3 Atlanta, GA Mercedes-Benz Stadium *
June 6 Tampa, FL Raymond James Stadium +
June 8 Tampa, FL Raymond James Stadium *
June 14 Houston, TX NRG Stadium *
June 20 Santa Clara, CA Levi’s Stadium +
June 22 Santa Clara, CA Levi’s Stadium *
June 27 Denver, CO Empower Field at Mile High +
June 29 Denver, CO Empower Field at Mile High *
July 5 Birmingham, UK Villa Park w/ Black Sabbath
November 1 Perth, AUS Optus Stadium
November 5 Adelaide, AUS Adelaide Oval
November 8 Melbourne, AUS Marvel Stadium
November 12 Brisbane, AUS Suncorp Stadium
November 15 Sydney, AUS Accor Stadium
November 19 Auckland, NZ Eden park

* Pantera and Suicidal Tendencies support
+ Limp Bizkit and Ice Nine Kills support