Fillmore, San Francisco – Metallica gave a 6-hour long party that celebrated their 30 years. The anniversary celebration featured game shows, celebrity messages, tributes and of course a performance from the band that took heavy and metal to the front.

And after three hours of mingling and gaming, taped celebrity messages and congratulating, the hosts took the stage and treated the fans to a barrage of rarities, even debuting songs that never got played live.

“This is our party. We’re headlining. We’re gonna play. The doors are locked. You can’t escape,” scowled frontman James Hetfield.

Probably the highlight of the act is when James brought to the stage former bassist Jason Newsted and introduced him as “someone who lived with us, and toured with us and did stuff with us for 14 years”. Jason played and sang along to Harvester of Sorrow alongside current bassist Robert Trujillo. Hetfield was able to oblige Newsted to perform Damage Inc. before leaving the stage.

Newsted replaced original bassist Cliff Burton who died in a bus accident in September 1986, quit Metallica in January of 2001 explaining his departure was due to “private and personal reasons and the physical damage I have done to myself over the years while playing the music that I love.”

Newsted continued with his side project Echobrain and soon played bass for Ozzy Osbourne where Robert Trujillo used to handle bass duties. In 2006, Newsted formed Rockstar Supernova with Tommy Lee (Motley Crue), Gilby Clarke (ex-Guns ‘N Roses) and Rock Star reality TV series winner Lukas Rossi. Their album received negative reviews but charted at no.4 on the Canadian Albums Chart.

Newsted continues to play bass with Canadian thrash metal band, Vovoid.

Fillmore would’ve exploded if original guitarist Dave Mustaine of Megadeth jammed too.