Metallica have continued their tradition of honouring local acts at each stop of their current ‘WorldWired Tour’, but their cover of Prince‘s Purple Rain classic ‘When Doves Cry’ is making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Performing in Prince’s hometown of Minneapolis on Tuesday night, bassist Rob Trujillo and guitarist Kirk Hammett performed the cover as part of the show’s regular ‘Rob & Kirk’s Doodle’ segment.
While the pair did bring some metal riffs to the song as Trujillo attempted vocal duties, the cover clearly gave off a strange vibe in such a huge arena, and some Metallica and Prince fans have voiced their feelings online…
Truly terrible. Kirk coundn't even be bothered to learn the opening solo?! I would consider this an overt dis on Prince's legacy (NOT to mention Metallica's): https://t.co/oc1GUtbOGs
— CrypTicuS (Patrick Bruss) (@Crypticus) September 5, 2018
https://twitter.com/iambrianwright/status/1037462956219322368
https://twitter.com/VC2dot0/status/1037527451813928960
this gotta be one of the worst Prince covers of all time, from any band of any skill level — damn bruh @Metallica https://t.co/5VYTgGh8ug
— yung bolo (@ooloo) September 6, 2018
Metallica covering Prince played worse than the shitty 14 year olds covering Metallica on Youtube on we all had a good laugh at 10 years. we're through the looking glass etc. https://t.co/P5y8HxAHLb
— Chris Somers (@african_fiction) September 6, 2018
Whether or not you’re a fan of the cover, it was definitely a brave undertaking for Metallica. Watch the performance in full below.
While the band continues its US tour, a poster claiming to be for an upcoming Australian tour was confirmed as a big ‘ol fake earlier this month.
Metallica haven’t performed down under since Soundwave Festival in 2013, and they completed their last headline tour of Australia back in 2010.
However, drummer Lars Ulrich recently said the band have “gotta go to Australia” at some point during their current tour behind latest album Hardwired… To Self-Destruct, which could take the band into 2020.