How soon can you get in line in front of Metro? This morning, Metallica announced that it will play an impromptu show at the Wrigleyville venue this evening—the band's first time performing at the club since 1983. You can only attend if you snag a wristband in-person from the Metro box office, which seems to be a strategy to prevent the scalping of tickets to this extremely intimate concert from a band that headlined Lollapalooza back in 2015.
According to the Metallica website, all attendees must be fully vaccinated, presenting a copy (a digital photo or photocopy is fine) of their vaccination card indicating that their final dose was administered no less than 14 days before today. Tickets are just $20 and are limited to one per person, so you can't pick one up for your friend who is stuck behind their desk this afternoon.
Once you have your ticket, the line to enter the show opens at 6pm this afternoon, with doors opening at 7pm and the concert beginning at 8:30pm. Metro holds a little more than 1,000 people, so it's entirely possible that all of the tickets to the show have already been claimed—head to the box office at your own risk (of disappointment)!
Metallica seems to be on a secret tour at the moment—last Thursday, the band played a secret show at San Francisco venue The Independent for a crowd of about 500 fans, marking the first time the band has performed live in 738 days.
While the band is still working on a new LP, don't expect to hear any new songs if you manage to make your way into Metro. At Metallica's San Francisco show, the entire setlist was made up of songs that fans know and love. The band recently reissued its self-titled 1991 album (otherwise known as The Black Album) in celebration of its 30th anniversary, accompanied by a collection of covers recorded by more than 50 artists.
If you're hoping to snag a ticket to this once-in-a-lifetime show, we wish you the best of luck. The rest of us will be dreaming about what it might have been like when the Sandman visits us this evening and we drift off to never-never land.