When we were trying to compile an article featuring the rough mixes of the four songs Metallica performed during their 30th Anniversary shows, we noticed that clips were getting taken down from YouTube relatively fast. Now it makes sense, though, as Metallica announced late last night that they were releasing the four songs as a digital only EP called Beyond Magnetic. Plus, the band revealed that they’ll be making an announcement in January regarding a “special interactive fan event.”
The band posted the following statement on their website:
“Last week we celebrated our 30th anniversary together with Fan Club members from around the world by playing four nights at the historic Fillmore in San Francisco . . . it was quite the bash each and every night! If you were able to join us at any or all of the parties, thanks for coming out to hang with us. And whether or not you were there, you may have heard that we added some unreleased tracks from the Death Magnetic sessions to the set list – one ‘new’ song each night as part of the shenanigans on stage.
This week, we’re releasing those four tracks through iTunes exclusively in North America and on iTunes and additional digital retailers in other parts of the world as the Beyond Magnetic EP. All four studio versions of these songs were sent to Met Club members for free immediately following their live debut on stage at the Fillmore and tomorrow [ed. Note: the EP is now available] they will be available to everyone via the magic of digital downloading. They are the rough mixes, unfinished to their original degree of mixing from March of 2008, and those of you with very keen senses of sound might recognize bits and pieces from the ‘Mission Metallica’ videos posted in the summer of 2008.
Thanks again to everyone who visited us in San Francisco. As Lars mentioned at the end of the last show, we’ll be back here in January with an announcement about a special interactive fan event in June of 2012 . . . we may ask you to do a little traveling again!”
Out of the four songs, “Hate Train” may be the most recognizable from the ‘Mission Metallica’ video series. The Beyond Magnetic EP is currently available via iTunes, while you can take a look at Metallica performing the four songs live in our previous post.
As for the special interactive fan event, we’ll have to wait till January to find out for sure. However, we do know that it’ll be in June of 2012, and Metallica hints that traveling might be will be involved. We could speculate further as to what the event will actually be (if it’s a Metallica convention, would it be called MetalliCon?), but instead we’ll just wait till January.
