Metallica played its first-ever concert in Saudi Arabia December 14 during the opening night of the three-day Soundstorm festival in Riyadh. While they're not the first international metal band to play the country (Cryptopsy beat 'em to it), the show was still a very big deal. Metallica's setlist ran as follows:
- Creeping Death
- For Whom The Bell Tolls
- Wherever I May Roam
- The Memory Remains
- Lux Æterna
- Too Far Gone?
- Fade To Black
- Fuel
- Orion
- Nothing Else Matters
- Sad But True
- The Unforgiven
- Seek & Destroy
- One
- Master Of Puppets
- Enter Sandman
"We're not done with 2023 just yet, as an amazing opportunity has just come our way to perform at a major festival that we have never played in a part of the world we rarely get to visit," said Metallica of the performance at the time of its announcement.
"We're excited to announce that on Thursday, December 14 we’ll be the first hard rock band to ever play at @MDLBeast's Soundstorm Festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Festival and single-day tickets are available now at mdlbeast.com."
Metallica is currently the only band to ever play shows on all seven continents, having played their Freeze 'Em All concert on December 8, 2013 in Antarctica. So now they've just gotta play every country and then they're good… until shows in the Mariana Trench and/or space start happening.
