Formed in 1981 by drummer Lars Ulrich and guitarist and vocalist James Hetfield, Metallica have become one of the most influential and commercially successful rock bands in history, having sold 110 million albums worldwide and playing to millions of fans the world over. They have scored almost a dozen multi-platinum albums, including 1991's Metallica (commonly referred to as "The Black Album"), which is the best selling album in history of Soundscan, scanning over 16 million albums in the United States alone, and nearly 30 million worldwide. In October 2008, their album, Death Magnetic, debuted at number one on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart and in 27 additional countries around the world.

Metallica have garnered numerous awards and accolades, including nine Grammy® Awards, two American Music Awards, and multiple MTV Video Music Awards. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009. In December 2011, Metallica celebrated its 30th anniversary, performing four shows at the Fillmore Theatre in San Francisco, CA, exclusively for members of their fan club, the Metallica Club.

In 2012, they announced the launch of Orion Music+More, an annual two-day festival curated and headlined by the band that will return in June of 2013 in a new location, Detroit, Michigan. This past summer, Metallica unveiled a brand new stage in Mexico City that featured iconic elements that spanned its 30-year career. They played eight shows to nearly 180,000 fans at the Sports Arena in Mexico City. Later that month the band performed four shows on the same stage in Canada, two in Edmonton and two in Vancouver, during which they shot their upcoming Nimród Antal directed 3D feature film, Metallica Through the Never, which will be released nationwide exclusively into IMAX® 3D theatres for a one-week engagement starting Friday, September 27, 2013. The film will expand into additional North American theatres on October 4, 2013.

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