Metallica held the third edition of their annual Helping Hands charity concert at Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theatre on Friday, 16th December. The benefit raises funds for the band’s All Within My Hands non-profit organisation, which assists communities by “supporting workforce education, the fight against hunger, and other critical local services.”
Towards the end of the evening, Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) joined Metallica for a performance of ‘Nothing Else Matters’, playing guitar and singing alongside frontman James Hetfield. See fan-shot footage of that below.
St. Vincent Joins Metallica for ‘Nothing Else Matters’
Clark’s onstage collaboration with Metallica comes after she covered the band’s ‘Sad But True’ for last year’s The Metallica Blacklist, which saw over 50 artists submit renditions of songs from Metallica’s 1991 self-titled album (better known as “The Black Album”).
Bringing out Clark for ‘Nothing Else Matters’ wasn’t the only surprise Metallica had in store for the night. Alongside signature songs like ‘Seek & Destroy’, ‘Creeping Death’, ‘Enter Sandman’ and ‘The Unforgiven’, the band performed acoustic covers of Thin Lizzy‘s ‘Borderline’ and UFO‘s ‘It’s Killing Me’.
Metallica also performed their new single ‘Lux Æterna’ live for the very first time. The band’s first single in over six years arrived at the end of last month as the lead track from their forthcoming album, 72 Seasons. 72 Seasons is set to arrive Friday, 14th April 2023.
“72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are,” Hetfield said of the forthcoming follow-up to 2016’s Hardwired… to Self Destruct in a press release upon its announcement.
“I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”
Further Reading
Listen To St. Vincent Shred A Cover Of Metallica’s ‘Sad But True’
Metallica And Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn Team Up For Backstage Jam
Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ Enters Hot 100 for the First Time Following ‘Stranger Things’