Metallica recently announced that their new album, 72 Seasons, will be out next April, at which point they’ll be setting off on a loaded tour that runs through 2024. But this past weekend, the band were on stage in Los Angeles for their annual Helping Hands Concert and Auction fundraising event warming up those riffs. The concert saw St. Vincent’s Annie Clark join Metallica for “Nothing Else Matters” and Clark absolutely destroyed it.
Taking point on lead vocals and lead guitar with James Hetfield, Clark was masterful. She swapped guitar solos with Hetfield as Lars Ulrich pounded away on the drums behind them with Robert Trujillo and Kirk Hammett flanking them. But it could have gone awry, because Hetfield butchered Clark’s name when he introduced her. “We’re gonna bring a new friend of ours out here,” he said. “Her name is Annie…Vincent.” Uhhhh…ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? Calling Annie Clark Annie Vincent is like when Donald Trump infamously referred to Apple CEO Tim Cook, as “Tim Apple.” But hey, we’ll let it slide. After all, she is a “new friend” and the whole “Annie Clark is St. Vincent” thing can be confusing.
We’ll especially let it slide given how well they played together. Clark is beyond worthy of sharing the stage with Metallica and in fact, appeared on Metallica’s 2021 covers album, The Metallica Blacklist, with her take on “Sad But True.”
Watch St. Vincent and Metallica play “Nothing Else Matters” above and pardon the dude singing along at the end of the video, but this was the real deal.
