Video: Metallica Perform Naional Anthem at San Francisco Giants Game for 8th Year in a Row

Pandemic and clown-rules-MLB-season be damned, Metallica and the San Francisco Giants were determined not to let their streak of national anthem performances fall by the wayside in this damned year: last night (September 23), James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” remotely (pre-recorded), carrying the tradition into its eighth year.

If you’ve seen any one of the first seven of these you’ve basically seen ’em all, but I will add that I enjoyed focusing on Hetfield’s parts this time around — his chord voicings and choice of lead harmonies — and I found the spirited fist-bump between the two at the end particularly endearing. Have a look below.

Metallica have been working on new song ideas remotely during the pandemic, with James Hetfield, Lars and Kirk Hammett all recently saying they’ve been writing independently and plan to jam together in a “bubble” some time later this year. The band hosted a pre-recorded drive-in concert in August at hundreds of outdoor movie theaters and just released a recording of last year’s S&M2 concert, which beat out Katy Perry for top-selling new album in its first week of release. Meanwhile, a re-worked version of “Nothing Else Matters” is slated to appear in the upcoming Disney film, Jungle Cruise.