Metallica have released professionally shot footage of For Whom The Bell Tolls from the sixth night of their Sphere residency, played on 17 October.
The structure of the run is the part worth understanding. Twenty four performances across October, November, January, February and March, arranged as twelve weekends, and the Thursday and the Saturday of each weekend share no songs at all. That is the same rule as the M72 tour and it means a band of this age has to hold two full sets in their hands at once.
SPIN, reviewing a recent night, made the observation everybody is circling: the musicianship is at its peak and it is hard not to wonder how much longer this level of intensity can be sustained.
For Whom The Bell Tolls is from 1984 and has been in the set more or less ever since. Hearing it in a room with a sixteen thousand resolution screen wrapped around the audience is a strange destination for a song written about trench warfare.
The residency runs to 13 March 2027, and the band keep adding nights to it.