At their May 30 concert at Olympiastadion in Berlin, Germany, METALLICA delivered one of the most talked-about moments of their entire M72 world tour: guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo stepped to the front of the stage and performed "Sonne" by RAMMSTEIN — sending the Berlin crowd into absolute frenzy.
The performance is part of METALLICA's beloved "Doodle" tradition, a touring ritual in which Hammett and Trujillo perform stripped-down, two-man covers at each concert, drawing specifically from the musical culture of the city they are visiting. Without James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, the audience initially expected the frontman — instead, they got something far more surprising and locally resonant.
The concept originated during an earlier European tour when management suggested covering Dutch rock institution GOLDEN EARRING's "Radar Love." The crowd's overwhelming response convinced the band to commit to researching a local or culturally relevant song at every stop. As Trujillo described it: "We'd go up there... and the crowd's expecting James to come out and sing" — the resulting subversion of expectations has become one of the defining highlights of the M72 experience.
The choice of "Sonne" for Berlin was inspired. Released as the lead single from RAMMSTEIN's landmark 2001 album Mutter, the song is one of the most recognizable in all of German rock and metal history. Hearing it filtered through the stripped-down bass-and-guitar lens of Hammett and Trujillo — in front of tens of thousands of fans at the very stadium that has hosted historic concerts throughout the decades — was a collision of two metal generations that Berlin will not soon forget.
The M72 world tour, which launched in Amsterdam in April 2023, has now seen METALLICA perform for approximately four million fans worldwide. Beyond the spectacle, the tour has also served as a vehicle for METALLICA's All Within My Hands charitable foundation, which has raised over $20 million since 2017 in support of workforce education and disaster relief programs.
Fan-filmed footage of the "Sonne" cover spread across social media almost immediately after the Berlin show concluded on May 30, drawing enthusiastic responses from fans of both METALLICA and RAMMSTEIN. Two of the heaviest bands ever to emerge from their respective countries, brought together for one extraordinary moment on a Berlin stage. Few cities could have asked for a better tribute.