Metallica played their first-ever gig 40 years ago

Metallica played their first-ever gig 40 years ago

This week Metallica celebrated the 40th anniversary of their first-ever gig. Lars Ulriuch shared their first-ever flyer and setlist on his social media pages. The gig took place at Radio City in Anaheim, California. However, the set was mostly covers and the door charge was $15 and they pulled around 75 people to the show.

The gig was only months before Metallica made its debut recording on the first ever “Metal Massacre” compilation. The spelling of the band printed out as Mettallica. The band lineup back then was James Hetfield on vocals, Dave Mustaine on guitar, Ron McGovney on bass and Lars Ulrich on drums.

The band only played two originals and they were  “Hit The Lights” and “Jump In The Fire”. The rest were covers of Diamond Head songs, “Let It Loose” by Savage and “Killing Time” by Sweet Savage. James Hetfield wasn’t playing the guitar at the time and was only on vocals. Therefore, Dave Mustaine was the sole guitarist of Metallica.

Metallica Merchandise

In an interview with U.K. magazine Kerrang! Hetfield spoke about their first gig “The first gig was at Radio City, and I was just singing. There were a lot of people there, maybe 200. We had all my school friends and all Lars’ and Ron’s and Dave’s buddies. I was really nervous and a little uncomfortable without a guitar, and then during the first song, Dave broke a string. It seemed to take him an eternity to change it and I was standing there really embarrassed. We were really disappointed afterwards. But there were never as many people at the following shows as there were at that first one.”