James Hetfield at Metallica’s 2018 Stockholm gig
Photo: Redferns, MICHAEL CAMPANELLA. All rights reserved.
In recent years, Metallica have made it a habit on tour to honor local music heroes with more or less rehearsed covers at concerts.
At their first Stockholm concert in 2018, Metallica covered Europe with “The Final Countdown”. That was pretty neat. At the second gig, of course, the more prominent Swedes were in the spotlight: ABBA.
The cover was a bit crooked: Robert Trujillo wasn’t quite sure of the lyrics, and Kirk Hammett sometimes had trouble keeping the beat. So at that time people wished for the original ABBA – even if the four musicians, despite new songs, don’t want to go on stage again themselves. But that’s what ABBA-tare is for.