Watch: Metallica Unveil Two Songs from S&M2 Performance

In September of last year, back before the world ended — seems like a lifetime ago already — Metallica reprised their groundbreaking 1999 S&M performance with a symphony orchestra for a new entry in the series, S&M². The concert also served as a grand opening of sorts for San Francisco’s Chase Center, a brand new 18,064-seat arena. Tickets for that show sold out within minutes leaving even Metallica fan club members locked out, leading the band to announce a second show just for the diehards. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted the San Francisco Symphony at both performances. The band later screened S&M² in 3,000 movie theaters across the globe.

Those performances are now coming to DVD/BluRay/streaming, and Metallica this morning have unveiled not one but two songs from the set, “All Within My Hands” (from St. Anger, and also the titular track of the band’s own charitable foundation) and “Nothing Else Matters” (one of the most popular rock songs of all time on YouTube). The band premiered those two tracks on their YouTube channel at 9:15am and 9:30am this morning, respectively, and you can watch them below along with a trailer for the full set. Lars Ulrich said last month that we should expect an S&M² box set in August, and that date is now set for August 28; pre-order here.

As it happened, S&M² ended up being the last time Metallica performed together. Their fall 2019 shows were postponed when James Hetfield went to rehab, and all of their 2020 touring plans were postponed due to the coronavirus.

Bassist Robert Trujillo recently said that Metallica are working on new music over the internet while in quarantine, echoing Lars Ulrich’s earlier comments that the band would look at doing that if the isolation dragged on.