Metallica Ignited Brisbane with a High-Octane, Fire-Breathing “Fuel” at Suncorp Stadium 2025
The first hint that “Fuel” in Brisbane was going to be something special came long before James Hetfield barked the words “gimme fuel, gimme fire.” It was a warm Wednesday at Suncorp Stadium, Metallica’s first Brisbane appearance in twelve years, and the atmosphere had been building all day. Fans had queued at the Fortitude Valley pop-up store, grabbed exclusive M72 merch, and then streamed toward the stadium to see a bill topped by Metallica with Evanescence and Suicidal Tendencies as support. By the time AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top” and then Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” rang out over the PA, the place already felt like a pressure cooker ready to blow.
One of the big talking points before the show was the Snake Pit. On the M72 tour, it’s no longer a simple cut-out wedge in front of the stage; it sits inside the massive in-the-round setup, a sunken island of diehards surrounded by a 360-degree runway. Enhanced experiences had sold out months in advance, giving a select few fans the chance to literally stand in the middle of the storm while the band raced circles around them. For Brisbane, those fans weren’t just getting bragging rights—they were about to become the backdrop for a brand-new “Fuel LIVE from the Snakepit” 4K video that would be online within hours.
When the main set finally kicked off, it did so with absolutely zero easing-in. “Creeping Death” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls” came first, the same opening one-two punch that had been flattening crowds across Australia. As the extended Bell Tolls outro boomed around Suncorp, you could feel the crowd shifting from “this is amazing” to “this might get dangerous.” Down in the Snake Pit, where the band members kept rotating past at arm’s length on the circular runway, people were jammed shoulder to shoulder, screaming the bass intro back at Trujillo and punching the air in time with the drums. And then, just as the lights dipped, everyone knew what was coming next.
The third song of the night was “Fuel,” and Brisbane reacted like someone had set off fireworks indoors. There was a heartbeat of darkness after Bell Tolls faded, then Lars snapped into a quick count-in, Hetfield stepped to his mic on one segment of the circle, and that jagged opening riff sliced through the PA. A split second later, the opening line—“Gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire!”—detonated against a burst of pyro, sending a wash of heat across the front rows and the Pit. For anyone watching from home later, the official Snake Pit video would capture the moment in crystal-clear detail, but being physically there, feeling that shockwave, was something else entirely.
From the center of the stadium, the Snake Pit looked like a boiling cauldron. Fans clung to the rail as the band tore around them on the outer runway, sometimes with their backs to the distant stands and sometimes facing straight into the Pit like they were playing a sweaty club show. Phone screens lit the air, but even through all the recording and selfie-taking there was a rawness to it: people screaming lyrics straight into their cameras, turning the devices back to catch the band flashing past, then jerking them around again to film their friends losing their minds. The whole thing had the manic, slightly unstable energy of user-generated content colliding head-on with a world-class stadium production.
Musically, “Fuel” has always been Metallica at their most unapologetically fun—three and a half minutes of speed, swagger, and car-crash imagery—and the Brisbane performance leaned into all of that. Hetfield’s voice, so often praised for its grit on the old thrash material, slid perfectly into the song’s slinky, almost rock ‘n’ roll phrasing. His “Ooh yeah!” between lines was pure S&M-era showman, delivered with the kind of grin that tells you he’s still enjoying this thing he wrote in the 90s. Meanwhile, the guitars were dialed in to a tight, mid-heavy roar, every muted chug hitting like a punch to the solar plexus through Suncorp’s upgraded sound system.
Out on the runway, Kirk Hammett treated the middle section like a playground. Before the solo even truly kicked off, he teased engine-revving slides and squeals—echoes of the rev-up intros that fans still argue are the definitive way to start the song—sending fresh waves of cheers around the stadium. When he finally dug into the proper solo, hands flying over the fretboard, the cameras caught tight shots of his wah-drenched lines while the big screens showed him framed against swirling, flame-colored graphics. In the Snake Pit, you didn’t just hear the solo; you could actually see drops of sweat flying off his hair as he head-banged inches away from the rail.
Robert Trujillo, as ever, was the kinetic center of it all. He spent much of “Fuel” in motion, crab-walking along the inner rail of the Snake Pit, locking eyes with individual fans, and jabbing his bass neck toward their cameras as if he were physically punching his way into their footage. Every time the song dropped into its half-time stomp, he planted his feet and whipped his head in perfect time with the kick drum, that thick, growling bass tone gluing the riff together. In the 4K Snake Pit video, you can see fans trying to head-bang along with him and failing to keep up, laughing as they stumble and then dive right back in.
And then there was Lars. The M72 tour has quietly reminded many people why he remains one of rock’s most distinct drummers. Brisbane’s “Fuel” underlined that perfectly. The drums sounded crisp and forward in the mix, the double-kick sections sitting exactly where they needed to be, the cymbal accents snapping like pistol shots. Lars has always played the song like he’s trying to drag it faster by sheer will, and on this night that urgency translated into something exhilarating—a veteran drummer surfing right on top of the chaos instead of being swallowed by it.
Part of the thrill of getting “Fuel” so early in the Brisbane set was the way it reframed the rest of the night. Fans had floated rough setlist expectations—Creeping Death, Bell Tolls, Nothing Else Matters, Sandman—but seeing Fuel locked into third place, with Ride the Lightning waiting right behind it, made it clear this wasn’t going to be a safe, autopilot greatest-hits run-through. Instead, the band were structuring the evening like a rollercoaster: early adrenaline, followed by deeper emotional cuts and then another climb into the massive endgame of Moth Into Flame, Master of Puppets, One and Sandman.
The crowd dynamic played a huge role in making the performance feel so unhinged—in a good way. Brisbane had waited since 2013 to see Metallica on their own terms again, after a canceled tour derailed the band’s last plans to bring a full production to Australia. That pent-up anticipation turned “Fuel” into a pressure-release valve. In the stands, you could see three generations of fans moving together: parents who’d discovered the band with the Black Album, older diehards in vintage shirts, teenagers who first heard Fuel through video games or social media. When the chorus hit, all those timelines collapsed into one big, shouting moment.
It helped that the stadium itself is purpose-built for big, loud moments. Suncorp’s bowl structure can trap sound in a way that makes 50,000 people feel like twice that number, and during “Fuel” every “Ooh!” and “Yeah!” bounced back onto the field like an echo from some larger, invisible crowd. Even up on the higher tiers, people were on their feet, punching the air on the snare hits and raising imaginary steering wheels when Hetfield leaned into the car-crash imagery of the verses. The combination of pyrotechnics and sound created a physical sensation—a kind of chest-thump pressure—that you simply don’t get sitting on your couch.
When the official “Fuel LIVE from the Snakepit in Brisbane” video appeared online a few hours later, it instantly became the digital souvenir of the night. Shot from inside the Pit, it captured exactly what it felt like to have the band orbiting you instead of towering in the distance: James pacing past with his camo trucker hat and ESP, Kirk throwing devil horns right into the lens, Trujillo’s bass headstock practically smacking the camera. Early comments were full of fans reliving their spot in the Pit or jealously tagging friends saying they should’ve paid for the experience.
In the broader story of the M72 World Tour, Brisbane’s “Fuel” is another chapter in the band’s ongoing love affair with the Snake Pit itself. They’ve used similar close-up clips from other cities to showcase how different the in-the-round design feels compared to a traditional stadium stage. Fans and media outlets have latched onto those pro-shot videos as proof that, this deep into their career, Metallica are still finding new ways to make massive shows feel strangely intimate. The Brisbane clip fits right into that lineage—sweaty, chaotic, and full of tiny human moments you’d miss from the nosebleeds.
By the time the song slammed to a stop and James tossed out a quick “Brisbane! You still with us?” the roar alone answered the question. The band barely paused before diving headlong into Ride the Lightning, but you could sense people turning to each other between songs, eyes wide, mouthing, “Did that just happen?” That’s the lingering effect of a great live performance: even as the night barrels on—into ballads, epics, and encore anthems—one burst of gasoline and fire stays burned into everyone’s memory as the moment where the night truly caught flame.
Looking back, “Fuel” in Brisbane wasn’t just a fun mid-set banger; it was a mission statement. It said that Metallica, in the third year of a two-continent tour supporting a late-career album, still refuse to coast. It proved that a song from the 90s can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with 80s thrash monsters and new cuts without feeling like a compromise. And, maybe most importantly, it showed how the Snake Pit—once a quirky VIP pen at the front of the stage—has evolved into a beating heart at the center of Metallica’s live identity, a place where a stadium show briefly feels like a club gig with 50,000 witnesses watching from all around.
