Metallica musicians Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, the SF Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas after announcing them as the first performer at the Chase Center in San Francisco, March 18, 2019.
Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
Metallica performs with the San Francisco Symphony for the grand opening of Chase Center, the new home of the Golden State Warriors, September 6, 2019.
Nick Otto/Special to The Chronicle
Warriors president and COO Rick Welts (left) poses with Metallica musicians Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, the SF Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas, Mayor London Breed and Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob after announcing them as the first performer at the Chase Center in San Francisco, March 18, 2019.
Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
Metallica musicians Lars Ulrich (left), James Hetfield (right), and the SF Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas (center) speak on stage after it was announced that they would be the first performers at the Chase Center in San Francisco, March 18, 2019.
Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
Michael Tilson Thomas, the longtime San Francisco Symphony music director whose death has prompted tributes across the music world, left behind a legacy that stretched far beyond the concert hall. Among the most vivid examples was S&M2, the pair of concerts that united Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony for the opening of Chase Center in San Francisco.
The performances on Sept. 6 and Sept. 8, 2019, marked the 20th anniversary of Metallica’s original 1999 collaboration with the Symphony at Berkeley Community Theater, which produced the live album “S&M.”
The sequel, billed as S&M2, was announced months earlier as the first major concert event at the Golden State Warriors’ new arena in Mission Bay, with Warriors executives pitching it as something distinctly local.
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San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas (left) and Metallica guitarist James Hetfield speak on stage after it was announced that they would be the first performers at the Chase Center in San Francisco, on March 18, 2019.
Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
“We wanted to do something unique to the Bay Area,” Rick Welts, then the Warriors’ president and chief operating officer, said at the March 2019 announcement. “Something that would happen only here and nowhere else in the world.”
Metallica said in a statement Thursday, April 23 — a day after Thomas died — that the conductor was “a major driving force in the development” of the shows.
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“We cherished our time with MTT and learned so much working with him to prepare the S&M2 performances,” the band said. “It was a very high honor to have him on the podium.”
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For Thomas, who led the Symphony from 1995 to 2020 and spent decades pushing the orchestra toward new audiences and repertory, the collaboration fit squarely within a larger artistic philosophy. He had built his reputation not only on performances of Mahler, Beethoven and Debussy, but also on championing contemporary music, unconventional programming and the idea that orchestras could belong to the broader civic culture of San Francisco.
That made Metallica — the world’s most famous metal band, and one with deep Bay Area roots of its own — a natural, if still striking, partner.
The event was conducted by Thomas and Edwin Outwater, with new orchestral charts by acclaimed musical arranger Bruce Coughlin supplementing material from the first “S&M.” In addition to revisiting older songs, the 2019 concerts incorporated Metallica songs written after the original collaboration.
A banner while announcing Metallica as the first performer at the Chase Center in San Francisco, March 18, 2019.
Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
“It’s a beautiful opportunity,” Metallica frontman James Hetfield said at the time. “We’re super proud that after 38 years, there’s still cool things on the horizon for us.”
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Lars Ulrich, Metallica’s drummer, cast the project as both a hometown gesture and a creative challenge. In an August 2019 interview with The Chronicle, ahead of the shows, he dismissed the idea of playing it safe.
“You mean, ‘Why not take the easy way?’ Two words: San Francisco. It’s that simple,” Ulrich said. “When we’re home, we’ve got to do something above and beyond.”
Ulrich also spoke warmly of the artistic chemistry behind the production.
“Knowing we’re in great creative and collaborative company with Michael Tilson Thomas and Edwin Outwater and the whole San Francisco Symphony is an incredible thing,” he said.
When the concerts arrived that September, they carried both civic symbolism and personal resonance. Thomas had undergone heart surgery earlier that year, and the appearance came during what would be his final season as the Symphony’s music director.
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Metallica performs with the San Francisco Symphony for the grand opening of Chase Center, the new home of the Golden State Warriors, on Sept. 6, 2019 in San Francisco.
Nick Otto/Special to The Chronicle
Outwater led much of the performance, while Thomas took the stage for a featured segment that included Prokofiev’s “Scythian Suite” and Alexander Mosolov’s “Iron Foundry,” offering a kind of historical bridge between orchestral modernism and heavy metal.
Reviewing the opening-night performance, The Chronicle described the event as both a celebration and a collision of musical worlds, with Metallica and the 75-member orchestra performing on and around a circular stage in the center of the arena.
The concert culminated in crowd-pleasing renditions of “One,” “Master of Puppets,” “Nothing Else Matters” and “Enter Sandman.”
“There is no place on this planet Metallica would rather be tonight than here with you,” Ulrich told the crowd from the stage.
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The shows were also, in a practical sense, a landmark opening for Chase Center. The first Sept. 6 concert sold out quickly, and a second date was added for Sept. 8, available primarily to members of Metallica’s Fifth Member fan club after complaints about the initial ticket sale.
The Chronicle reported at the time that resale tickets for the first show appeared almost immediately on secondary-market sites, with some lower-section seats listed for as much as $75,000.
Beyond the spectacle, S&M2 came to stand as a distilled expression of Thomas’ role in San Francisco cultural life. He was, as friends, musicians and civic leaders have said after his death, a conductor who consistently blurred lines — between old and new music, formal institutions and public life, education and performance.
From left, Boz Scaggs, Lars Ulrich of Metallica, Elvis Costello, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, and Phil Lesh stand for a photograph during the 70th Birthday Gala celebration for Michael Tilson Thomas at the San Francisco Symphony at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, Jan. 15, 2015.
Stephen Lam/Special to The Chronicle
In a 2020 Chronicle tribute marking the close of his Symphony tenure, Ulrich said Thomas’ sensibility and Metallica’s were not so far apart.
“MTT has been incredibly progressive in the classical music world. He’s pushed boundaries. He’s the perfect fit for San Francisco,” Ulrich said. “We’re thankful and appreciative of all the joy he’s brought to this city, the Bay Area and Northern California.”
He added, “In terms of love of music, celebrating music, celebrating collaboration, celebrating curiosity, and a journey that should always be organic and pure, I think MTT and Metallica share a lot.”
That spirit may help explain why S&M” has endured as more than a novelty or one-off concert event. It was a high-profile arena show, a civic unveiling and an anniversary celebration. But it was also a reminder of the ethos Thomas brought to San Francisco over 25 years: that an orchestra could be adventurous, porous and unmistakably of its city.