Metallica forked out $300k for cushions gig-goers destroyed at arena show

2023-08-02 19:16

The heavy metal legends were less than impressed with the mammoth bill they had to pay because of gig-goers.

Metallica got charged hundreds of thousands of pounds for cushions destroyed by fans at Long Beach Arena.

Drummer Lars Ulrich has revealed gig-goers used the pillows as frisbees and they'd have to fork out $300,000 to pay for the cost of replacing them.

Speaking on Conan O'Brien's 'Needs A Friend' podcast, he recalled: "What are there 16,000 seats in there? We've paid for about 15,000 of those 16,000 seats over the years because every time we were playing Long Beach Arena, people would just take the cushion, you know, play frisbee with it inside the arena.

"The next day [the venue staff] would be like, 'Okay, Metallica, here's those $300,000 worth of cushions that you have to pay for.'"

The 59-year-old revealed they had to put out a warning to fans on a local radio show to tell them not to destroy the venue's property because the 'Enter Sandman' rockers are the ones who pay the price, not "authority" or "the man".

He went on: "We had to go on KNAC [radio station] multiple times and go 'Listen, whatever. You know, you're our fans, and we're your fans and we're all in this together. We want you to have a good time and we support that. But understand one thing, if you think you're rebelling against the building or rebelling against authority or rebelling against the man or whatever the f*** it is, do you think you're rebellious? The only people you're really rebelling against is Metallica."

The James Hetfield-fronted heavy metal group once had a scary incident happen at The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (LA Coliseum) where 40,000 folding chairs were precariously thrown onstage, forcing them to stop the gig.

Recalling the show at the iconic venue, he added: "At that time, things were maybe slightly more unpredictable about the physical elements of the makeup of the shows, and in front of the stage the whole lawn, the football field at the LA Coliseum was [made up of] all folding chairs.

"I don't know if any of you would like to guess where 40,000 folding chairs ended up three songs into the set. Yeah. That's right. All those - whatever there was - 30, 40,000 folding chairs ended up on stage. And so we had to stop the show."

Throwing items onstage has become a concerning trend lately, with the likes of Bebe Rexha, Harry Styles and Ava Max having random items pelted at them.