METALLICA with Evanescence, Suicidal Tendencies
Eden Park, Auckland Nov 19th 2025
Reviewed by Jeremy Elwood | Photos by Chris Zwaagdyk
The forecast rain held off, the predicted traffic apocalypse didn’t happen, and Eden Park’s noise-averse neighbours probably got exactly what they feared most as Metallica made their long awaited return to New Zealand last night. For die-hard fans – and the “Metallica Family”, as James Hetfield calls them, are certainly that – this final gig on the Australasian leg of their M72 world tour was everything they could have wanted.
There was a family connection in the support acts, too, with Suicidal Tendencies opening the show. Only frontman Mike Muir remains from their original lineup, but Rob Trujillo played bass with him from 1989-1995 before joining Metallica in 2003, as documented in the film Some Kind of Monster. Now his son Tye Trujillo has Dad’s old job. Their 40-minute set (with what felt like at least a third of it consisting of an extended jam version of You Can’t Bring Me Down and Muir trying to get people to shout his band’s name)did a decent job of energising the slowly arriving crowd, but not much more.
Evanescence have also gone through significant lineup changes, with singer Amy Lee being the constant. It was always her soaring voice that defined their sound, and what a voice it is. Lee’s vocals soar over the stadium, backed by the band’s signature industrial, distorted crunch, over 14 songs. It’s gothic, both aesthetically and in scale, leaning heavily on later albums Evanescence (2011) and The Bitter Truth (2021), although it’s the two big hits from debut Fallen (2003) that get the biggest reception. Solo at a grand piano, Amy Lee brings the by-now-jammed audience to heel (and to more than a few middle-aged tears) with My Immortal before Bring Me To Life closes a quite brilliant set.
A video/photo montage of gigs past and present soundtracked by AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top segues into Ennio Morricone’s The Ecstasy of Gold, and to the roar of 55,000 devotees, Metallica are here.
From the start, it’s clear that they’ll deliver exactly what these fans have been waiting for. Creeping Death announces their intentions, but For Whom the Bell Tolls brings seated fans fully to their feet, where they’ll largely remain for the next two hours.
It’s loud, heavy and relentless. The widescreen visuals and precision pyrotechnics are impressive without overshadowing the music, and the setlist is heavy on the hits. The 15 tracks (and one “improvisation”, that we will get to) cover almost their entire 40-year discography. From Kill Em All (1983)to 72 Seasons (2023)every studio album warrants at least one track, except Load and St Anger, which even the most rabid fan would concede is probably for the best. Understandably, their multi-platinum, self-titled 1991 behemoth – best known as The Black Album – does a lot of the heavy lifting. Nothing Else Matters is a highlight, and Enter Sandman erupts into literal fireworks to close the night.
It’s two perhaps lesser-known cuts, though, that show what Metallica are still so very capable of. The Day That Never Comes and Moth into Flame show off, in the best possible way, the sheer musicianship of this entire band. Lars Ulrich and Rob Trujillo are far more than just a rhythm section behind James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett’s twin guitar attack. All four of these guys can just flat out play.
Hetfield was disarmingly personable, and his voice has survived the years far better than most of his contemporaries. Ulrich seems either unwilling or unable to be confined by his kit, ending many songs standing for the final cymbal crash. Hammett is a virtuoso, supplementing and perhaps unfairly overshadowing Hetfield’s own magnificent fretwork, but Trujillo matches them both riff by riff, despite having fewer strings.
Their chemistry is obvious. Hetfield, Ulrich and Hammett have been together since 1983, and even the “new guy” Trujillo has over two decades of time in. They remind me of The Rolling Stones, a group of friends playing music together who also just happen to be one of the biggest bands in the world. As hard as they rock, and as dark as some of the imagery gets, there’s an undeniable joy in what they do – what other hard rock unit would release dozens of oversized beach balls during a gig?
It’s not flawless. There were some distracting issues with Hammett’s guitar tone; during The Unforgiven his Les Paul sounded like a cheap semi-acoustic, and, perhaps mercifully, it was almost inaudible during the aforementioned improv section, an established part of this tour where he and Trujillo attempt covers of local songs. Personally, I can’t stand this kind of forced familiarity, (Pearl Jam are usually guilty of it too) but even if you love it, their butchering of Split Enz and, um, Six60 was jarringly uncomfortable.
A couple of the video breaks, perhaps put in to give the band a breather (they are all in their 60s now, to be fair) extended longer than they could have, and cancelled out the much-discussed curiosity that there was no “encore”. Instead, there was another extended video before the final few songs.
But by the time the band resurfaced together on the thrust stage (including conjuring up a second drumkit, in a slight of hand I somehow totally missed) these felt like minor complaints.
Like the gunslingers their arrival music envokes, Metallica sauntered into town, blew away the competition, and left their adoring public in a cloud of dust.
