That’s d*mn rock and roll.
Nashville may be known for country music, but over the weekend hard rock took center stage as Metallica took over Music City for two shows at Nissan Stadium.
The legendary group was joined by Pantera, Limp Bizkit and others for the massive shows, and even a rain and lightning delay on Saturday night couldn’t keep fans from coming out to hear “Enter Sandman” and “For Whom The Bell Tolls” live.
But with the concerts on Thursday and Saturday, the band had a day off in Nashville on Friday night…and a couple of the members decided to spend it with Eric Church at his downtown Nashville bar, Chief’s.
Chief’s was the site of the SiriusXM Headbangers Happy Hour on Friday night, celebrating Metallica’s run of shows at Nissan Stadium. Along with host Jose Mangin, the Neon Steeple at Chief’s welcomed a packed house for performances from Lzzy Hale and Joe Storm of Halestorm, Charlie Benante from Anthrax and Pantera, and more.
And despite being pretty busy with the release of his own album Evangeline vs. The Machine on Friday, Church still made time to stop by – and bring some friends.
Church spoke about his love for Metallica growing up, joking that the discussion from his childhood was always choosing your favorite Metallica album between Master of Puppets or The Black Album. (Chief says that he went Puppets, for the record):
“We built this room to be, as you can tell by the windows, it’s a listening room. There’s a lot of bars on Broadway, and they’re not this. That’s the reason we built this place. And I go back to, I’m a child of the ’80s. I was born in the 70s…
It is an honor to bring two legends that meant a lot to me growing up to this stage.”
Church then surprised the crowd by welcoming up two longtime members of Metallica, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bass player Rob Trujillo.
Of course Church has a long history with Metallica, performing at their Orion Music + More festival all the way back in 2012. He may have seemed like an unlikely addition to the lineup at the time, but just a couple of years later Church dropped his rock-tinged album The Outsiders, taking Halestorm along for his Outsiders tour (longtime Church fans may remember that one for the giant inflatable devil that popped up in the back of the arena) and even performing “That’s D*mn Rock & Roll” with Lzzy Hale at the 2014 CMA Awards.
Even in his latest single, “Hands of Time,” Church name drops songs like AC/DC’s “Back in Black” and “You Shook Me All Night Long,” and his Nashville bar features stained glass windows of his biggest influences including The Rolling Stones, The Band and Bob Seger.
It’s clear that rock music has always had an influence on Church, and there was no better place for members of Metallica to hang out on their day off in Nashville than the bar dedicated to some of his biggest musical influences.
