Every Artist That's Opened for Metallica Over the Last 10 Years

Here's every artist that's opened for Metallica over the last 10 years.

The thrash legends have had quite a strong list of artists supporting them throughout their M72 World tour, which first kicked off back in 2023 after the release of their latest album 72 Seasons.

We wanted to take it a step further and look back at all of the acts that have opened for them over the last 10 years, which would have been when they were on tour in support of Hardwired... To Self Destruct!. 

Since then, Metallica have performed at least a few times each year, even in 2020. They embarked on a couple of headlining tours and played a bunch of festivals all around the world. On some tours, they had a few set opening acts play with them and on others, they chose groups that were local to the area the performance was set to take place in.

We gathered the list of artists through various sources, including the "Past Tour Dates" section of Metallica's website and the online Concert Archives database. We didn't include festivals because those artists weren't technically supporting Metallica directly.

This year alone, Pantera, Gojira, Knocked Loose and Avatar will join Metallica as they embark on the next European leg of their M72 World Tour. It's unclear at this time whether anyone will open for them during their residency at the Las Vegas sphere this fall (which they're the first metal band to do!).

READ MORE: The 2 Metallica Songs James Hetfield Finds 'Difficult' to Play Live

As you scroll through the gallery below, you'll see the artists and bands listed in chronological order since 2016 and the location and year that they opened is noted underneath each image. We included the new 2026 openers even though the shows haven't happened yet.

Scroll below to see all of the artists that have opened for Metallica over the last 10 years.

For more on the history of Metallica, scroll through a photo timeline of their career below.