Metallica Performs "Wherever I May Roam", "The Unforgiven", More On 'The Howard Stern Show' [Listen]

After teasing fans on social media last week, Metallica returned to The Howard Stern Show on Wednesday for the first time in over three years. One day before its 29th anniversary, the quartet performed two songs off their 1991 self-titled album, commonly known as “The Black Album,” as well as a song from 2003’s St. Anger.

To start things off, drummer Lars Ulrich counted the band into the first “Black Album” song, “Wherever I May Roam”. Categorized by the typical high-gain guitar tone from James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett and a thunderous bassline from Robert Trujillo, this rendition stuck closely to the studio version’s structure and 6:44 runtime. Hammett linked together measure after measure of sweeping guitar leads to end the song, garnering Stern’s enthusiastic approval: “Good Lord, I love it.”

The second and final “Black Album” song came next with “The Unforgiven”. Hetfield lead the group into this track with acoustic picking before Ulrich signaled-in Hammett’s distorted leads. While Hetfield’s voice seemed uncharacteristically dull, perhaps due to a lack of performing for months on end or a mixer issue, the song came together quite nicely thanks to a near perfect rhythm section.

Finally, Metallica closed out the Stern appearance with an acoustic rendition of the St. Anger track, “All Within My Hands”. Here, San Francisco-based musician Avi Vinocur of Goodnight, Texas joined the group on vocals. He and Hetfield harmonized well on the track which (thankfully) didn’t include the infamous snare Ulrich used on the studio album.

Check out all three tracks below and keep an eye out on Metallica’s Facebook page for video when it becomes available.

Metallica – “Wherever I May Roam” – The Howard Stern Show

[Video: Metallica]

Metallica – “The Unforgiven” – The Howard Stern Show

[Video: Metallica]

Metallica – “All Within My Hands” – The Howard Stern Show

[Video: Metallica]

Metallica also recently announced S&M2, a live album and concert film box set documenting their two-night run at San Francisco, CA’s Chase Center with the San Francisco Symphony. The box set incudes over two-and-a-half hours of music and features a pair of classical pieces hand-picked by San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. S&M2 is set for release on August28th. Click here for more album and pre-order info.