San Francisco Mayor London Breed proclaimed December 16th as “Metallica Day” on Thursday, as the band kicked off its 40th anniversary “San Francisco Takeover” celebration across the city.
Metallica are commemorating 40 years in style, with a pair of headlining concerts and various other festivities taking place across their home turf in San Francisco.
Drummer Lars Ulrich and bassist Robert Trujillo joined Mayor Breed at the Chase Center for the official proclamation of Metallica Day, in acknowledgement of the thrash legends’ storied career — of which the Bay Area scene played a large part.
“They’re part of the fabric of the community,” Breed said. “They have touched people’s lives for generations.”
Breed continued: “When you talk about San Francisco, you talk about cable cars and then you talk about Metallica. And on behalf of the City and County of San Francisco, I want to officially declare today Metallica Day.”
As previously reported, Metallica will play two shows at the Chase Center tonight (December 17th) and Sunday (December 19th), with limited tickets occasionally popping up on Ticketmaster. The historic gigs will be streaming via Prime Video and Amazon Music, and we expect a number of surprise guests if the shows are anything like Metallica’s 30th anniversary concerts at the Fillmore.
“Our hearts and our souls and our sense of belonging will always be San Francisco,” said Ulrich. “And Metallica and San Francisco will always be two words which are synonymous with each other.”
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It’s set to be a truly celebratory week of all things Metallica in the Bay Area. The band announced a slew of extra events surrounding the anniversary shows running throughout the weekend, including club gigs by Taipei Houston (featuring Ulrich’s two sons) and OTTTO (featuring Trujillo’s son Tye).
Watch the press conference declaring December 16th in San Francisco as “Metallica Day” below.
