Live Review: Metallica – London Stadium, Night 1
3rd July 2026
Support: Knocked Loose, Gojira
Words & Photos: Tim Finch
The Razor’s Edge started out the third Euro leg of Metallic’s M72 tour on the opening night at the Olympic Stadium in Athens. A swelteringly hot weekend kicked off their tour in style. Thus it is fitting that we are back for the closing weekend, two night’s at London’s own Olympic stadium, which will close out all European dates on this album cycle tour.
With the sun still burning high in the sky, not quite as hot as last week’s heat wave, but we’re getting there, it’s up to Knocked Loose to kick things off. Being used to small, sweaty clubs means jumping into a stadium-sized spotlight is never an easy task, but Knocked Loose approached it with the same unrelenting ferocity that’s built their reputation. Their sound is abrasive, punishing, and unapologetically intense and tonight it cut through the vast space with surprising clarity, driven by pummelling drums and razor-sharp riffs. Whilst the stadium capacity is a little sparse as the show kicks off, the band handle it in style and win over a number of unsuspecting new fans along the way.
Much like the opening night of the tour, Gojira’s set is colossal. From the outset we are hit with waves of crushing riffs, thunderous rhythms, and an almost hypnotic precision that filled the stadium with ease. Their sound is precision perfect and Joe Duplantier’s vocals roared with purpose, while the band locked into grooves that were as punishing as they were intricate. This was a performance that demonstrated a band just a few years away from headlining venues of this size in their own right!
Pretty much every night on this tour across Europe has set local attendance records, in Athens the 90,000+ crowd was the biggest the Olympic stadium had ever seen (and dwarfed the crowd size Maiden pulled in the city just a few weeks later… sssh, don’t tell the Iron Maiden fans that). The bands “in the round” set up lends itself to greater capacity on the floor and thus tonight seems to be no different, if an attendance record is not set, I’ll eat my hat. All this just going to prove the demand for Metallica is sky high, more so now than has ever been. Questions abound, how will the set differ from earlier dates? Do Metallica have any surprises in store for opening night in London? We are about to find out.
As the atmosphere builds and smoke billows across the eight huge digital screens the opening notes of ‘Creeping Death’ play out, a blistering number to kick off a frantic night. Following on we have ‘Harvester of Sorrow’ and the rarely played ‘Holier Than Thou’ keeping the energy levels high both on stage and in the crowd. From here ‘Of Wolf And Man’ concludes the opening salvo and a magnificent one it is too.
Next it’s into the newer segment of the set. ‘Lux Æterna’ led into ‘If Darkness Had A Son’ before we get the now traditional Kirk and Rob jam featuring ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock and Rill’ by Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
‘Fade to Black’ led into ‘Cyanide’ in a rare airing for a Death Magnetic track. Whilst the instrumental classic ‘Orion’ brings atmosphere to proceedings, and a tear to eye as James dedicates it to the late Cliff Burton, an image of which adorns his T-shirt this evening.
After the ever popular ‘Nothing Else Matters’ James asks”Do you like heavy?”, which can mean only one thing ‘Sad But True’. The beast from the Black Album rings out across the Olympic Stadium like no other track can.
After another fairly new offering with ‘Hardwired To Self Destruct’ the pyro of ‘Fuel’ kicks in the sky is lit with flame after flame in a song which James quips “is one of the two he likes”. And thus the evening is closed with the classics ‘Seek and Destroy’ and ‘Master of Puppets’.
The fans wait expectantly for an encore that never comes but with the next show less than 48 hours away we have not got long to wait for our next Metallica fix.
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