Mot\u00f6rhead<\/a> were marking Lemmy<\/a>\u2019s birthday with a special show at this sweatiest of sweatboxes. His actual birthday may not have been until 10 days later, on Christmas Eve, but the fact that he had defied all medical and pharmaceutical odds to make it to his half-century was worth celebrating with the mother of all parties.<\/p>\n Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n But the crowd\u2019s excitement wasn\u2019t just down to the headliners. Word had leaked out that tonight\u2019s support band were none other than Metallica<\/a>, who planned to cover a set of Mot\u00f6rhead songs under the name The Lemmys.<\/p>\n \u201cThey planned it as a surprise,\u201d the real Lemmy later explained. \u201cThey interrupted their new album [Load] to fly down and do it. They are the only ones who have really given us back for what they say we gave them.\u201d<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Metallica\u2019s relationship with Mot\u00f6rhead stretched back to their very early days. Drummer Lars Ulrich<\/a>, a recently transplanted Danish tennis prodigy who had given up a career on the court to live out his heavy metal<\/a> dreams, had decided to appoint himself cheerleader-in-chief for the British band.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 1981, I ended up running some of the Mot\u00f6rhead appreciation stuff and also following them around on tour,\u201d Ulrich told Metallica\u2019s official magazine, So What!. \u201cA few years later, when they were in LA, I went down to the hotel room to see Lemmy. I started drinking and ended up passed out in his room, having thrown up over myself. He took a picture of that and put it on one of the Mot\u00f6rhead records.\u201d<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: YouTube)<\/p>\n Ulrich wasn\u2019t the only long-standing Mot\u00f6rhead fan in Metallica. Jason Newsted<\/a> was Metallica\u2019s bassist at the time of Lemmy\u2019s birthday. Newsted had come across Mot\u00f6rhead\u2019s albums in the bins of a record store in his native Michigan. He\u2019d been playing and singing (We Are) The Road Crew and Love Me Like A Reptile since forming his first bands in the early 80s.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first time I\u2019d met Lemmy was at a Mot\u00f6rhead show in Berkeley, California in about 1987, when I\u2019d only been in Metallica a couple of months,\u201d recalls Newsted today. \u201cAt the end of the night, James [Hetfield, Metallica guitarist\/vocalist] said, \u2018Let\u2019s go meet him.\u2019 Lemmy is the only guy that gets to call James Hetfield<\/a> \u2018Jimmy\u2019 \u2013 anyone else gets punched in the face. [Lemmy voice] \u2018Jimmy! How ya doing!\u2019 So I walk up to him and go, \u2018I\u2019m Jason, I play bass with Metallica now.\u2019 And he goes, \u2018I know who you are, ya cunt!\u2019 I lifted off the ground with joy.\u201d<\/p>\n When it came to rehearsing for their support slot, the members of Metallica tapped into their inner fanboys. \u201cWe were all really fucking excited,\u201d says Newsted. \u201cI busted out my Rickenbacker for rehearsals, playing those songs I had played so many times before. It was deep.\u201d<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n On the day of the show, Metallica turned up early at the Whisky (a venue they hadn\u2019t played since supporting Mot\u00f6rhead\u2019s old touring buddies Saxon<\/a> in 1982). When they finished their soundcheck, they found the birthday boy already in party mood.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was maybe 4.30 or five in the afternoon, we saw Lemmy and he had a full freakin\u2019 20-ounce stein of Jack and Coke,\u201d says Newsted. \u201cHe was already kicking it back, and they weren\u2019t going on until 10.30! I was always amazed at his capacity. He could down a couple of steins like that, then go up and rock that show like it was nobody\u2019s business.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time the doors opened, everyone there knew that Metallica were the opening act. What they didn\u2019t know was that the band would take to the stage in matching black shirts, mirrored shades, long black wigs and scribbled-on Ace Of Spades tattoos.<\/p>\n Lars recalled: \u201cAfter some initial hesitation, I also wore the wig and shades. Try playing Mot\u00f6rhead songs when you have a three-foot black wig on and can\u2019t see shit! And as we walk towards the Whisky stage, the fuckin\u2019 look on people\u2019s faces\u2026 Classic! I start Overkill<\/a>, immediately swallow half the wig, but who gives a fuck and off we go!\u201d<\/p>\n The band rattled through a brief set of six songs hand-picked from Mot\u00f6rhead\u2019s great late-70s and early-80s albums: Overkill, Damage Case, Stone Dead Forever, Too Late, Too Late, The Chase Is Better Than The Catch and (We Are) The Road Crew, plus a reprise of Overkill. Listen to bootlegs of the show and Metallica \u2013 sorry, The Lemmys \u2013 stay faithful to the tracks. Which is more than can be said of the felt-tipped Ace Of Spades tattoo that James Hetfield had scrawled on his arm \u2013 the wrong arm, as it turned out.<\/p>\n Not everything went to plan onstage. For (We Are) The Road Crew, Newsted stepped up to the microphone, while Lemmy himself strode onstage to play bass. \u201cI sang (We Are) The Road Crew in my old bands ever since Ace Of Spades<\/a> came out,\u201d says Newsted. \u201cSo I thought, \u2018I\u2019ve been doing it long enough, I got it memorised.\u2019 Then Lemmy comes over right before the first verse, and he\u2019s right in my face. He\u2019s rubbing his warts on my fucking face! And while he\u2019s rubbing that shit on my skin, he says, \u2018Alright, don\u2019t forget the words, mate. Don\u2019t fuck it up.\u2019 So, of course, I\u2019m distracted and I miss the first line. I didn\u2019t have a chance \u2013 but he knew that.\u201d<\/p>\n The headliners had a tough act to follow, though in fairness they had one of the greatest back catalogues in rock to fall back on. The birthday boy himself was on great form, as the likes of Iggy Pop<\/a>, Ice-T and porn star Ron Jeremy toasted the great man\u2019s health, while Ugly Kid Joe\u2019s Whitfield Crane<\/a> was wheeled out to sing on Born To Raise Hell. But for many in the crowd, the night was all about The Lemmys. For the members of Metallica, the hangovers the next morning took some shifting \u2013 as did the ringing in their ears.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went pretty hard that night,\u201d says Newsted. \u201cThat was a pretty crazy night all round. You gotta remember that we took most of our gear into a place that was 600-feet square. Even for a Mot\u00f6rhead show, it was loud!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"December 14, 1995 was a night like any other on the Sunset Strip. Thousands of cars inched along…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-630867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Metallica](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/JKj9kCugkz8VCu8Y2A6QuM.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n