Metallica to Almost Play The Super Bowl

The Super Bowl halftime show is generally a showcasing of a) whatever pop star is famous enough but not so sexy as to worry mainstream America, or b) an aged musician whose radio-friendly tunes will make your typical football fan pine for the good ol’ days that never existed. And while it would be pretty appropriate for a metal band to play the Super Bowl, given that it’s basically a ballet of brutal violence, it’s probably never going to happen. So we have to settle for the next-best thing:

Metallica will headline CBS Radio’s The Night Before, a concert held on Saturday, February 7th, as a lead-in to Super Bowl Sunday. The band will play AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. Cage The Elephant will apparently be opening.

Is this bullshit? Absolutely. Metallica are easily the greatest metal band in the world and have sold more records than God, but they’re still relegated to the night before. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift or some other magazine cover pop star will no doubt play for the masses at Super Bowl L, once again proving that your legacy and talent doesn’t matter if you have skulls on your T-shirts.

Here’s my feeling, though: metal’s too good for the Super Bowl. While it is the American sports Christmas, the Super Bowl is just a big money well these days, a place for people who don’t actually care about the game to spend tons of money so they can say they were there. I was at Super Bowl 2012 in Indianapolis, and most of the people around me showed up late and spent the whole game on their cell phones. So fuck the Super Bowl. I’d rather Metallica played the parking lot of the game than the game itself.

ANYWAY, if you want to catch Metallica at The Night Before, pre-sale tickets will be available on Wednesday, November 4th for Citi card members, while tickets will be available to the general public that Friday, November 6th. Check out the ad below or go here to learn more. We’ll let you know if Carpathian Forest are tapped for the halftime show.