Metallica & San Francisco Symphony: “Nothing Else Matters” Live in Symphony Collaboration

It’s often described as a “cover,” but the Metallica & San Francisco Symphony rendition of “Nothing Else Matters” is actually the band performing its own 1991 power ballad in a symphonic arrangement. The original song—released as a single in 1992 from the Black Album—already featured strings arranged by Michael Kamen, laying the groundwork for the larger orchestral collaboration that would come later.

The first full-scale meeting between Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony happened in April 1999 at the Berkeley Community Theatre, recorded over two nights and released as the live album and concert film S&M that November. Conducted by Kamen, the project reimagined staples like “Nothing Else Matters” with sweeping strings and brass, without surrendering the song’s intimate core. It became the band’s last album with bassist Jason Newsted.

Kamen described his approach as “conducting a conversation between two different worlds,” weaving counter-melodies and color around songs that were already complete. He emphasized that the orchestra wasn’t there to “sweeten” Metallica, but to become a full musical partner—“the fifth Beatle,” as he put it—balancing electric power with symphonic mass. That philosophy is exactly what listeners hear in the 1999 “Nothing Else Matters” performance.

Live, the arrangement opens space around James Hetfield’s clean arpeggios and vocal line. Low strings mirror the guitar’s minor tonality, while woodwinds add lift to the pre-chorus and violins trace the vocal melody in high relief. The orchestra’s crescendos swell where the band holds back, and then recede beneath the electric guitars—an ebb and flow that preserves the song’s confession-like intimacy while enlarging its emotional footprint.

The 1999 cycle also produced a standalone European single of “Nothing Else Matters” credited to Metallica “with Michael Kamen conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra,” underscoring how central the orchestral concept was to this version’s identity. That release helped fix the S&M take in public memory as a definitive alternate rendition, circulating on radio and retail apart from the full album.

Two decades later the partnership returned for S&M2, recorded at San Francisco’s brand-new Chase Center on September 6 and 8, 2019—shows that doubled as the arena’s grand-opening concerts. Beyond the nostalgia, the aim was to revisit the 1999 blueprint and extend it to material written since, placing the symphonic idea inside the band’s post-Black Album songbook.

Edwin Outwater conducted the lion’s share of the S&M2 performances, with longtime San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas leading selected pieces. That dual-conductor setup allowed the event to honor Kamen’s legacy while engaging the orchestra’s current artistic leadership, sharpening the dynamic between Metallica’s rhythmic weight and the Symphony’s coloristic detail.

The 2019 concerts were filmed and given a one-night global theatrical release on October 9, 2019, before arriving as an expanded album/film package on August 28, 2020. The film captured the 360-degree stage design and the way the orchestra and band encircled each other—an important visual metaphor that mirrored the musical dialogue at the heart of these arrangements.

S&M2’s official track list includes a late-show performance of “Nothing Else Matters,” where the Symphony cushions Hetfield’s low-register vocal with sustained strings, then rises to meet the climactic choruses before melting away for the solo. The sequencing—near the end, just before “Enter Sandman”—positions the piece as a cathartic release after the set’s heavier excursions.

Contemporary reviews highlighted how the symphonic setting reframed familiar songs without dulling their impact. Critics noted the nearly three-hour arc and the risk-taking nature of the program, and singled out the grandeur that the Symphony lent to Metallica’s melodies. In this context, “Nothing Else Matters” read less as a respite and more as an emotional summit, amplified rather than softened by the orchestra.

From the podium, Outwater spoke about the historical stakes for the orchestra and the band, calling the collaboration a landmark in his own career and a chance to connect symphonic tradition to a massive global audience. That perspective helps explain the meticulous balances heard in “Nothing Else Matters,” where tempo, articulation, and phrase lengths are calibrated so neither ensemble overwhelms the other.

Production on the 2020 release was led by Greg Fidelman alongside Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, refining the concert audio and video beyond the theatrical cut. The improved mix makes the details in “Nothing Else Matters” easier to hear—the harp glissandi under the chorus, for instance, and the way the double basses darken the harmonic floor when the guitars move to fuller voicings.

S&M2 also broadened the orchestral footprint beyond the 1999 program—featuring, for example, an orchestra-only Prokofiev movement and a bass tribute to Cliff Burton—yet it reserved “Nothing Else Matters” for the late stretch, where its lyric about presence and trust landed with arena-wide intimacy. Arranging credits acknowledged both Michael Kamen’s foundational work and new contributions from orchestrator Bruce Coughlin.

Historically, the entire symphonic chapter flows from impulses long present in Metallica: Cliff Burton’s enthusiasm for classical forms, Kamen’s early suggestion after hearing the “elevator” string idea in the early ’90s, and the band’s willingness to test heavy music against a different kind of power. That lineage explains why the orchestral “Nothing Else Matters” feels organic rather than ornamental.

Taken together, the 1999 and 2019 performances show how a simple arpeggio and plain-spoken lyric can carry stadium-scale poetry when framed by 80 musicians. Calling it the “best version” is subjective, but the real story is clear: this is no mere cover. It’s Metallica, twice, inviting a world-class orchestra into one of their most vulnerable songs—and proving how elastic and durable that song really is.