Metallica at Sphere Las Vegas: Life Burns Faster Residency Dates, Setlists and Review

Life Burns Faster made Metallica the first major heavy metal act to headline Sphere. It opened on Oct. 1, 2026, to roughly 17,000 fans a night, and the band turned the run into a citywide "takeover" with a pop-up store, a VIP bar and a museum. This guide covers every date, the No Repeat Weekend setlists and what the shows look like.

The residency at a glance

The run grew twice after it was announced in February with eight October shows. On March 3 the band added Oct. 8 and 10, Nov. 5 and 7, and Jan. 28 and 30, and days later ten more dates through March 13, citing "unbelievable demand." Metallica then said it would not add more "at this point in time." Weekends already played: Oct. 1 and 3, Oct. 8 and 10, Oct. 15 and 17, and Oct. 22 and 24.

Tickets are sold for single nights or as two-night No Repeat Weekend passes, and the band also offers enhanced-experience tickets and travel packages.

No Repeat Weekends

Every weekend follows the band's "No Repeat Weekend" format from the M72 tour: the Thursday and Saturday shows have completely different setlists, so fans can come twice. Opening weekend covered 30 songs, leaning on Master of Puppets, which turns 40 this year, and the Black Album.

Thursday, Oct. 1

1. Battery
2. Creeping Death
3. Now That We're Dead
4. Sad but True
5. The Shortest Straw
6. Wherever I May Roam
7. The Day That Never Comes
8. ...And Justice for All
9. Kirk Hammett and Rob Trujillo "Doodle"
10. Nothing Else Matters
11. The Call of Ktulu
12. Lux Æterna
13. Ride the Lightning
14. The Memory Remains
15. Seek & Destroy
16. Master of Puppets

Saturday, Oct. 3

1. Blackened
2. Fuel
3. Leper Messiah
4. Devil's Dance
5. 72 Seasons
6. King Nothing
7. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
8. The Outlaw Torn
9. Hammett/Trujillo "Doodle"
10. The Unforgiven
11. Orion
12. Hardwired
13. Whiskey in the Jar
14. For Whom the Bell Tolls
15. One
16. Enter Sandman

What the shows look like

The Sphere visuals include a virtual roller-coaster ride through New York, Hollywood, Stonehenge and Nashville's Grimey's record store during "Wherever I May Roam" (enough to make at least one fan motion-sick), Cthulhu rampaging down the Strip in "The Call of Ktulu," and a giant orb with a spiky "M" crashing over the band in "Enter Sandman." Album art comes alive too, from Lady Justice for ...And Justice for All to the electric chair from Ride the Lightning. Not every song gets the full treatment: "Orion" uses standard truss lighting and "Fuel" is played without pyro.

"This is like a dream come true and beyond," James Hetfield told the opening-night crowd. "After 45 years, there's still a lot more fun to be had."

Beyond the concerts

• A giant pop-up store with photo ops, including the Ride the Lightning electric chair and a replica of the Metallica Mansion garage where the band wrote Master of Puppets.
• The Black Box, a VIP bar with a "tuning room" where guests can play the band's guitars and pose with Lars Ulrich's drums, a listening bar of rare recordings and a museum with Cliff Burton's bass and handwritten lyrics.
• A blood drive.

The 2026 tour around it

Before Las Vegas, Metallica played European stadiums in the summer, including Frankfurt, Zürich, Berlin, Bologna, Budapest, Dublin, Glasgow, Cardiff and London.

Sources · residency announcement, February 2026; Pollstar, March 4, 2026 (added dates); Billboard, March 2026; Rolling Stone review of opening weekend, Oct. 5, 2026; Blabbermouth on the Mohegan Sun shows (April 6, 2026) and the 2027 North American dates (Sept. 2026); event pages from Ticketmaster.