Metallica played Until It Sleeps at the Sphere on 10 October, the fourth night of the Life Burns Faster residency and the newest song pulled out of the catalogue for it. It follows the return of Devil's Dance earlier in the run.
The choice is less of a deep cut than the last one. Until It Sleeps was the lead single from Load in 1996 and went gold, which makes it a song a general audience knows and a song a certain kind of fan has spent thirty years arguing about.
What is becoming visible is the shape of the residency. Four shows in, the band seem to be alternating between two setlist configurations rather than rebuilding the night each time, which is how a room like the Sphere works: the visuals are built per song, and a song that has not been designed for the screen cannot simply be dropped in.
That makes each addition a piece of production work rather than a whim, and there is time for more of them. Five more dates follow this month, on 15, 17, 22, 24 and 29 October, and the residency runs to March.