“He would have been dead”: The terrifying moment James Hetfield was almost set ablaze on stage
1992 was an exceptional year for Metallica. Aside from enjoying the success of The Black Album, the band were flaunting a high-stakes tour across North America, headlining shows alongside Guns N’ Roses, engaging in their usual debauchery while stopping long enough to smell the roses. It was an incredible feat, an event that would mark their achievements while signposting a new era for rock and metal.
The Black Album marked a number of changes for the band, notably a transition from traditional thrash metal to a more polished, albeit still heavy, sound. The five singles that introduced the album, ‘Enter Sandman’, ‘The Unforgiven’, and ‘Nothing Else Matters’ became some of the band’s most career-defining songs, solidifying them as a force of the highest calibre, rightfully placed to tour alongside a band as equally reputable as the Roses.
The tour was successful from day one. Kicked off with a special tribute to Freddie Mercury with the remaining members of Queen and Tony Iommi, Metallica weren’t just on the cusp of greatness—they were there, flying high like a neon flag at full mast, swaying in the haze of a band that didn’t just hang out with history but made it too. The official Wherever We May Roam Tour overlapped with Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion Tour and included a host of impressive pyrotechnics to complement their unrelenting palpable stage energy.
In August, they were set to play to a crowd of around 55,000 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, poised for a night of unforgiving rapture as audience members poured in to experience the most unforgettable night of their lives. As always, the band were briefed beforehand on the use of pyrotechnics and the new decision to increase the number of powder charges during the show, which would place the explosives at the front of the stage as well as in the wings.
A few songs into the set, everything seems to be playing out exactly as it should—the crowd is rearing as the band continues to bestow heart-pumping anthems upon them. Next up is ‘Fade to Black’, a track much-anticipated in the dreary rock-fuelled haze, and James Hetfield assumes his usual position. They play out the introductory notes of the song before a sudden 12-foot emblazoned pyrotechnic fires out, eliciting excitable crowd roars amid the flashing aura.
Hetfield, unsure of where he was supposed to be standing, steps forward into the fire, having been overlooked by the person handling the pyrotechnics. It’s an instant disaster—the flames engulf him mid-song, some 3200-degree heat obscuring him from the rest of the band and the entire crowd. The musician would later recall his anger and agony as he watched “all these things going wrong”.
“I’m burnt. My arm, my hand, completely down to the bone,” he shared during an interview with VH-1’s Behind The Music. “The side of my face. Hair’s gone. Part of my back. I watched the skin just rising, all these things going wrong.” Thankfully, he executed the well-known “stop, drop, and roll” technique, putting out the flames before being rushed off to hospital with second and third-degree burns. “I was in shock,” he recalled. “The nerves felt like they were exposed. My hand looked the worst. It bubbled up in two layers that came off.”
Although he ended up making a full recovery, the outcome could have been much more insidious, as Jason Newsted later told People: “If he had been breathing in, he would have been dead”.
