Metallica's First Two Sphere Nights Made 17,600 People Feel Very Small

LAS VEGAS — The reviews are in, and the verdict on Metallica's Sphere residency is the closest thing to unanimous you'll find in rock criticism: the biggest metal band on the planet walked into the biggest room on the planet, and the room almost won. Night one, Thursday Oct. 1. Night two, Saturday Oct. 3. Thirty-two songs between them, not one repeated. If you went, you know. If you didn't, here's what the entire music press is still buzzing about five days later.

This is the band's Life Burns Faster residency — 24 shows total, presented as 12 No Repeat Weekends on Thursdays and Saturdays, running all the way through March 13, 2027. The No Repeat structure mirrors their ongoing M72 world tour: Thursday's setlist and Saturday's setlist are completely different shows, so the diehards in the building both nights (and there are many) never hear the same song twice. It is, objectively, an insane thing for a 40-plus-year-old band to attempt at this scale.

Night one: Battery as the warning shot

Thursday's opener told you everything about the weekend's intent. Metallica walked out and ripped into Battery — and per setlist records tracked by Set List FM and reported by the New York Post, it was the first time the band had opened a show with that song since July 2014. When a band with 45 years of openers to choose from reaches back a dozen years for the first riff of the residency, that is a statement.

The night only got deeper from there. Creeping Death came second. ...And Justice For All — the title track, not the album — got its first performance since August 2014. Now That We're Dead hadn't been played since 2021. The set represented 10 of the band's 11 studio albums, with only St. Anger excluded (the fan base has some thoughts on that album; the band seems to share them). They closed with the one-two punch of Seek & Destroy and "Master of Puppets," the latter paired with visuals of the field of crosses from the Master of Puppets artwork.

Night two: an 18-year resurrection

Saturday night, the deep cuts went from impressive to absurd. The band opened with Blackened (another first-time-in-12-years opener), and then — four songs in — pulled out Devil's Dance. The Load track hadn't been performed live since June 7, 2008, a full 18 years ago, Blabbermouth reported. Later in the night came The Outlaw Torn, which hadn't been played since September 2019. And yes, for everyone who showed up Thursday wondering where the staples were: Enter Sandman, One, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Whiskey in the Jar all landed on Saturday, exactly as Consequence predicted they would.

The fan favorites were there too, scattered across both nights exactly as promised: Enter Sandman, One, "Nothing Else Matters," "Master of Puppets," "Seek & Destroy." Nobody who bought a single-night ticket got a B-show. That was always the risk of the No Repeat format, and it's the thing the first weekend killed dead.

The verdict

The Guardian gave the opening night four stars and wrote that the first night of the residency was "an immersive plunge into the band's visual world that showcases the depth of their catalog," and adding that "Hetfield's voice is like a battering ram." Ultimate Classic Rock wrote that the band "took full advantage of the Sphere's hi-tech capabilities, with dramatic animations dwarfing the four band members on stage."

Louder Sound went bigger and wrote: "To call Metallica's arrival at the $2.3 billion Las Vegas Sphere a residency is to miss the point entirely: it's a high-tech conquest by a band that has outgrown every traditional stage on Earth." And Kerrang!, which has covered this band longer than most of the crowd has been alive, summed it up simply: the two nights made for "a fascinating, phenomenal and unique experience" — "long after they conquered the globe, Metallica have now also conquered The Sphere."

Why Lars wanted this building

None of this was accidental. When Metallica announced the residency earlier this year, drummer Lars Ulrich said he'd decided the band had to play the Sphere almost instantly after seeing U2 open the venue in 2023. "About 12 seconds into the opening night of Sphere with U2 back in '23, I thought, 'We have to do this. It's completely uncharted territory,'" Ulrich said, per Blabbermouth. "This residency gives us another chance to reinvent how we interact with our fans in a live setting."

He was right to want it, and the first weekend showed why: this is the one room where Metallica's scale problem becomes an asset. The Sphere holds 17,600 people under a 16K-resolution wraparound screen — the highest-resolution LED display in the world — with Sphere Immersive Sound powered by HOLOPLOT delivering audio to every seat. U2, Phish, Dead & Company and the Eagles have all done residencies in the building since it opened in September 2023, each bending the room to their music. Metallica is the first band that can genuinely overwhelm it back.

The Vegas economy is already bending around it

Here's where it gets very Las Vegas. The residency didn't just sell tickets — it spawned an ecosystem overnight. Carversteak at Resorts World is running a limited Carve 'Em All pre-show menu, Las Vegas Magazine reported Oct. 7, and the centerpiece is the Fade to Grand package: a Metallica guitar signed by Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett and Robert Trujillo, valued at more than $20,000, plus The Master — a cocktail built on Michter's 25-Year bourbon, Grand Marnier Quintessence, Okinawan kokuto black sugar and bitters, served with seared foie gras and finished with 24-karat gold. The rest of the menu is all puns: ...And Striploin For All (a 12-ounce New York strip), Ride the Lightning Upstream (blackened salmon), Whiskey In the Jar (sticky toffee pudding), Master of Spirits (Dewar's 15, Luxardo cherry, blood orange).

And if you're pricing the trip: the New York Post's ticket desk found the cheapest single-show seats at $685 including fees on Vivid Seats, with two-show No Repeat Weekend passes starting at $1,145. The next weekend is already this week — shows tonight and Saturday (Oct. 8 and 10) — followed by Oct. 15/17, Oct. 22/24, and Oct. 29/31, with November, January, February and March dates already announced.

What's next

After October's eight shows, the residency adds Nov. 5 & 7, Jan. 28 & 30, Feb. 4, 6, 18, 20, 25 & 27, and Mar. 4, 6, 11 & 13 — 12 weekends, 24 shows, all No Repeat. And the Sphere calendar around it is getting crowded: the Eagles run Nov. 13 through Jan. 23, the Backstreet Boys take New Year's week, and John Mayer's solo residency arrives April 8–18, 2027. If you're planning a Vegas music trip, the window is now.

More from this morning's Vegas beat: the Vegas daily roundup for October 8, plus our earlier coverage — the residency announcement and night two's Devil's Dance resurrection.