There’s something otherworldly about watching Metallica in Europe — especially in a city like Oslo, where the winter air feels sharp enough to cut steel. On this particular night in 2025, the band didn’t just perform. They erupted.
The crowd had already been whipped into a frenzy after a blistering run of classics — Creeping Death, One, and Master of Puppets — when James Hetfield stepped up to the mic, flashing that wicked grin that every Metallica fan knows means only one thing: something dangerous is coming.
“Are you evil?” he roared.
The lights went blood red. The opening riff of “Am I Evil?” — originally by Diamond Head, Metallica’s spiritual ancestors — ripped through the stadium like a bolt of lightning. It was more than a cover. It was a declaration.
From the first downstroke, Hetfield’s rhythm guitar sounded like molten iron, each chord snapping with primal power. Lars Ulrich, a proud Dane pounding away on home soil, was pure thunder behind the kit — his double bass echoing through the frost-bitten air. Robert Trujillo prowled the stage like a beast unleashed, slapping the bass strings with venomous precision.
But the magic moment belonged to Kirk Hammett.
When his solo arrived, he didn’t just play notes — he carved lightning. His fingers flew across the fretboard in a frenzy of distortion, the wah pedal crying like an electric banshee. Fans screamed his name as the Oslo skyline shimmered in the background, the stage lights painting fire on the fog.
The song stretched, swelled, and exploded — seven minutes of pure, unfiltered metal mythology. Every lyric hit like a confession: “My mother was a witch, she was burned alive…” Hetfield delivered it with that signature snarl — half rage, half reverence — like he was conjuring every ghost that made Metallica what they are.
Midway through, he leaned toward the mic again and growled, “This one’s for the old-schoolers. For those who were there before the Black Album, before the fame — when it was just riffs, sweat, and pure attitude.”
The audience — a mix of grizzled metal veterans and wide-eyed teens — roared in response. For a brief, electric instant, generations collided.
Oslo had never heard anything like it. Fans headbanged, cried, and screamed until their voices gave out. One fan later told a Norwegian newspaper, “It wasn’t just a song. It was church.”
When the final note rang out, the band froze in silhouette — four giants under a rain of sparks and cheers. Hetfield nodded to the crowd, almost humble. “We learned that one from our heroes,” he said. “And every time we play it… we remember why we started.”
And just like that, they launched straight into Seek & Destroy, as if to remind everyone that legends don’t fade — they evolve.
After the show, Oslo’s social media lit up with clips of the performance. Hashtags like #MetallicaOslo, #AmIEvilLive, and #MetalNeverDies trended across Europe. Fans called it “the purest form of heavy metal worship,” while one viral post simply said, “They’re not a band. They’re a living storm.”
Forty years on, Metallica still carry the fire — not as a memory, but as a living, roaring force. And in Oslo, on that freezing night, the answer to the question “Am I Evil?” was shouted by 50,000 voices in perfect unison:
“YES, I AM!”
