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METALLICA
+ Evanescence
+ Suicidal Tendencies
@ Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane,
12th November 2025
(Live Review)

Review by Alec Smart

Photos by Matt Young (@mattyoungpics)

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METALLICA / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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Metallica performed to an estimated 50,000 fans at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Queensland’s largest concert venue, on 12 November 2025, supported by Evanescence and Suicidal Tendencies.

The concert continues their M72 World Tour, which supports their most recent album, 72 Seasons (2023). The title was inspired by the first 18 years – or 72 seasons – of a person’s life and how those experiences shape you for adulthood.

Suncorp Stadium, the sixth largest sports stadium in Australia, is enormous. Home to NRL teams Brisbane Broncos and Redcliffe Dolphins, as well as Brisbane Roar (soccer) and Queensland Reds (rugby union), it’s no wonder the Broncos won the 2025 rugby league premiership – you wouldn’t want to upset 50,000 supporters and expect to make it out alive!

Within this enormous venue you’re reminded of the mighty Colosseum in Rome, where gladiators battled to the death or slaughtered wild animals in massive spectator events during the peak of the Roman Empire.

Thankfully, no gladiators nor wild creatures lost their lives during Metallica’s awesome concert, but with incredible graphics and pyrotechnics illustrating Metallica’s dark lyrical themes, it was a riveting spectacle that Emperor Titus would have applauded.

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SUICIDAL TENDENCIES / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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Suicidal Tendencies opened the night’s entertainment; the Metallica supports synchronised with a national Australian tour they’re performing in parallel.

The band generate a lot of energy, whilst singer Mike Muir, a sprightly 62-year-old, never stands still and is a constant blur of movement as he paces around the stage like a caged tiger. Suncorp Stadium’s massive arena is too small to contain his restless energy. If the dual-level stage had an additional track that circumnavigated its sporting arena, no doubt Muir would take off jogging around the circuit whilst still singing and engaging with the crowd.

Muir formed Suicidal Tendencies in 1980 and despite a few line-up changes – although lead guitarist Dean Pleasants has been with them since 1996 – the band have released 14 studio albums. They have enjoyed considerable success over the years, whilst staying close to their roots of hardcore punk / metal crossover.

Metallica’s Mexican/Native American bassist Robert Trujillo was a member of Suicidal Tendencies from 1989 – 1995 prior to joining Metallica in 2003, and he and Mike Muir still perform together in their long-term side project, humorous funk-metal band Infectious Grooves.

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SUICIDAL TENDENCIES / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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Trujillo’s son Tye Trujillo is now the bass player of Suicidal Tendencies, joining them in 2021, aged 17. Tye previously played for Korn when he was aged just 12.

At Suncorp, Suicidals performed seven songs that covered a retrospective of their career, including latest release Adrenaline Addict, their first new song in six years. The recording featured Australian/East Asian singer Nisha Star on guest vocals – who also joined them onstage in Brisbane.

In 2020, Star released a cover of Alone, which Suicidal Tendencies originally wrote and released on their 1990 album Lights, Camera, Revolution.

The song also marked the recording debut of Jay Weinberg with the band, former Slipknot drummer who’s now a touring member.

Suicidals are known as ST to their fans, evolved because of the black humour of the band’s name. Try typing “suicidal tendencies” into an online Google search and you’re met with a Lifeline crisis support contact number recommending counselling to prevent self-harming.

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EVANESCENCE / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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Evanescence ascended the stage as the stadium seating reached capacity with the last surge of fans (the venue opened early at 4.30pm due to a 10.30pm curfew), and they kept the audience spellbound for the next hour.

Singer and keyboardist Amy Lee has an incredible, operatic voice – take away her microphone and she could still entertain the arena acoustically.

Any lost stragglers making their way to Suncorp across greater Brisbane would have found the stadium without guides, by following Lee’s harmonious vocal cadences drifting across the city.

The band complemented her perfectly, especially on songs like Lithium and My Immortal, which Lee begins solo on piano before the band phase in and bring the songs to a glorious crescendo.

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EVANESCENCE / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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The five-piece was originally founded in 1994 by Amy Lee as a duo with guitarist Ben Moody. They were initially grouped with the ‘Nu-Metal’ genre on the mid-1990s because they departed from the guitar-based heavy metal bands of the era whose songs were predominantly composed around a guitar solo.

However, thankfully they shook off that tag, which banded them with some of the lamest bands in hard rock. Latterly they’re often described as ‘symphonic’ because they combine a diverse range of styles, including electronica, classical, Gothic, industrial, soul, progressive rock and traditional heavy metal.

Their creativity has earned them plaudits, multiple awards (including two Grammys) and they’re ranked one of the best-selling metal bands with an estimated 31.9 million albums sold from their discography of just five studio albums.

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METALLICA / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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Metallica announced to the crowd they were due to perform when the stadium speakers played the rousing AC/DC song It’s a Long Way to the Top (if you Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll). And of course, Metallica are at the top after 44 years and 11 multi-million-selling studio albums.

They are grouped among the ‘Big Four’ of heavy metal, along with Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth – the four bands that pioneered and popularized the subgenre of thrash metal in the 1980s, although, individually, the other three are unlikely to attract 50,000 fans to Suncorp Stadium.

Following the AC/DC track, the huge video screens behind the stage showed a haunting scene from the 1966 Clint Eastwood film, The Good The Bad and the Ugly, Accompanied by the sparse, iconic Ennio Morricone track, The Ecstasy of Gold, the video featured the lead-up to the climactic three-way shootout in the ‘Spaghetti Western’ that was filmed in the desolate Sad Hill Cemetery in Contreras, Spain.

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METALLICA / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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Metallica launched their set with one of their most popular early-era songs, Creeping Death (1984), which was inspired by the Ten Plagues of Egypt from the Biblical Book of Exodus. Specifically, plague number ten: death to the firstborn, when God kills every first-born child in ancient Egypt to force the Pharoah to release the enslaved Israelites. God’s like that, he’s got a mean temper!

Death and redemption, plague and purging are recurring themes in Metallica’s dark lyrics, along with introspective songs dealing with loss, loneliness and suicide.

But despite the cheery subject matter and the doom-laden animations on the screen behind – featuring skeletons marching through fields of rolled barbed wire, WWI biplanes in aerial dogfights, gravestones, hordes of hands swinging hammers, and other grim scenes – they’re great live performers.

The show was enhanced by laser lighting, strobes and giant bursts of fire from eight vertical flame-throwers.

The band continued with highlights from their 1980s-90s era: For Whom The Bell Tolls, Fuel, Ride The Lightning, The Unforgiven, Wherever I May Roam, encompassing their first six albums.

Guitarist-vocalist James Hetfield asked the crowd to raise their hands if they were attending their first Metallica concert. A sizeable proportion responded affirmatively. He then welcomed them, saying, “You are now members of the Metallica Family!” However, he warned, “The only stipulation is you can’t leave! If you do, we’ll come and find you!”

Roaming video cameras (including, for a short period, a drone) filmed the band members as they roamed the two-tier stage. This was interspersed with crowd shots of cheering fans with raised arms, their fingers clenched in Devil-horn salutes familiar to every ‘headbanging’ heavy metal fan.

Close-up footage of one of lead guitarist Kirk Hammett’s many instruments revealed it has the words “It comes to life!” next to the scratch-plate.

Close-up footage of singer James Hetfield’s right hand reveals he has the letters “RIFF” tattooed on his right knuckles.

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METALLICA / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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During an interval of sorts, bassist Robert Trujillo and guitarist Kirk Hammett came to the lower front stage where they performed a duet together. They covered Australian band The Chats’ amusing song Smoko, arguably a Bogan national anthem!

The full band returned to the stage with a selection of their more recent tracks – The Day That Never Comes (about domestic violence), Moth Into Flame (inspired by the late singer Amy Winehouse and her drug and alcohol addictions that tragically took her life) – before returning to 1990s compositions Sad But True and Nothing Else Matters.

The latter inspired the loudest of the night’s crowd sing-alongs accompanied by at least 30,000 mobile phones illuminated like thousands of fireflies glowing in the dark.

Then Metallica finished their main set on long-term crowd favourite Seek & Destroy.

During the preliminary finale, 40 giant inflatable black & yellow beach balls rolled out from the sides of the stage and into the audience, propelled in part by band members kicking them into the crowd. The balls, each two metres in diameter, bounced across the heads of people in the lower standing area, who punched and patted them back and forth.

After a break, the band returned for two separate encores: the first featuring Lux Æterna and Master Of Puppets, the second, One and Enter Sandman.

Drummer Lars Ulrich relocated from his kit at the back of the upper level to two separate kits hastily set up at the right, then left front of the lower stage, beside the crowd.

The grand finale as the band departed was a pyrotechnic display of fireworks above the roof of the stage at the northern end of the stadium.

Then, tens of thousands of fans in black Metallica T-shirts took advantage of free trains and buses to transport them home, kindly provided by Queensland Rail and Brisbane City Council.

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METALLICA / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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Set List

Creeping Death
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Fuel
Ride the Lightning
The Unforgiven
Wherever I May Roam
Smoko (The Chats cover)
The Day That Never Comes
Moth Into Flame
Sad but True
Nothing Else Matters
Seek & Destroy

Encore

Lux Æterna
Master of Puppets

Encore 2

One
Enter Sandman

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METALLICA / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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Check out Matt Young’s (@mattyoungpics) full gallery of this event HERE

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METALLICA / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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Follow METALLICA
Website – Instagram – Facebook – Tik Tok

Follow EVANESCENCE
Website – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter

Follow SUICIDAL TENDENCIES
Website – Instagram – Facebook – Spotify

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METALLICA / Photo – @mattyoungpics

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Press Release 24th October 2025 (below) HERE

METALLICA
M72 WORLD TOUR
2025 Australia and
New Zealand dates announced

Evanescence and Suicidal Tendencies to Support

General On Sale November 4

Pre-Sales, Enhanced Experiences, Travel Packages, Further Information HERE

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AMNPLIFY – DB