Photo Credit: Boston Lynn Schulz

Metallica took the stage today in Birmingham during Black Sabbath’s final Back to the Beginning concert. This showing comes about a week after Metallica wrapped up the most recent leg of their M72 Tour in Denver, Colorado, on June 29th. While Metallica was on stage during Back to the Beginning, they covered the iconic Sabbath songs “Hole in the Sky” and “Johnny Blade”. Metallica had previously performed “Hole in the Sky” back in 2009, as reported by Loudwire. But, this was the first time Metallica publicly performed “Johnny Blade” off of Black Sabbath’s Never Say Die! Album.

“Hole in the Sky” is what kicked off Metallica’s set. As usual, Metallica brought bold vocals with a nearly unbelievable instrumental. The energy throughout the stadium was on a high and the performance Metallica executed was even more energetic. Check out Metallica performing “Hole in the Sky” by Black Sabbath below.

Between performing “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Battery”, Metallica did another Black Sabbath cover. This time it was of their song “Johnny Blade”. This cover highlighted Metallica’s signature thrash sound. “Johnny Blade” was a perfect hard hitting song from Black Sabbath for Metallica to cover. 

Metallica accompanied these Black Sabbath covers with some of their classic hits. They played “Creeping Death”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, “Battery”, and the iconic “Master of Puppets”. Metallica was the perfect band to get the crowd pumped up right before Ozzy Osbourne took the stage, followed by Black Sabbath’s headlining set. A video of Metallica’s full Back to the Beginning set, including their performance of “Johnny Blade” is below.