Harvester of Sorrow Reaps the Rockies: Metallica’s Mile-High Maelstrom, June 27 2025

The early-evening haze still clung to Empower Field when the house lights snapped to black and AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top” thundered over the PA. Minutes later, Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” swelled, its orchestral sweep answered by 70,000 voices that seemed to lift the stadium roof clear off its girders. Metallica strode onstage to a mile-high roar, and James Hetfield’s grin made it clear Denver was in for something seismic.

With no time for pleasantries, Lars Ulrich’s snare cracked and the band lunged straight into “Creeping Death.” Yet it was the very next song—“Harvester of Sorrow,” appearing second in the set for the first time in years—that made jaws drop. The down-tuned opening riff rumbled out like distant artillery, instantly separating casual listeners from die-hards who knew this 1988 deep cut had become a rarity on recent tours.

The track’s grim narrative, penned during the …And Justice for All sessions, gained fresh heft in Denver’s thin air. Hetfield’s barked verses—“My life suffocates, planting seeds of hate”—echoed against steel risers, each syllable cutting as sharply as it had on cassette decks four decades prior. Kirk Hammett’s searing bends felt almost elastic at altitude, stretching just beyond pitch before snapping back with a metallic twang.

Steve Harris-style gallops may define classics like “Run to the Hills,” but “Harvester” is powered by a slower, doom-laden stomp. Robert Trujillo embraced that weight, digging into his Warwick’s low B string so ferociously that nearby camera rigs rattled. The venue’s revamped sub-array—installed for Broncos playoff games—boomed like a freight train, letting every palm-mute hit the crowd’s sternums with tactile force.

Ulrich, often maligned for tempo drift, delivered a rock-solid 99 BPM, nailing the tricky half-time feel that gives “Harvester” its hulking gait. His china cymbal, positioned high above the kit, sliced through the mix like shattered glass each time the chorus hit. Long-time tapers would later note that Lars’s timing was “the best Justice-era pocket since ’89,” a compliment rarely offered in recent years.

Between verses, Hetfield prowled the circular runway, pointing to nosebleeds as he growled “Drink up, shoot in, let the beatings begin.” Fans replied with a chant so loud it briefly drowned out the monitors. Denver’s notorious altitude can sap performers, but here it seemed to fuel Hetfield’s rasp, lending extra grit to lines about misery harvested and innocence destroyed.

The bridge’s chromatic descent remains one of Metallica’s darkest moments, and tonight it sounded downright apocalyptic. Stadium screens cut to monochrome images of abandoned farmland and cracked earth—visuals new to the M72 production that underscored the song’s allegory of societal decay. Flames erupted along the stage lip during Hammett’s solo, each burst timed to his wah-soaked string bends.

Fans who’d followed the M72 tour knew each city got a “No-Repeat Weekend,” but nobody expected “Harvester” to feature so prominently on Night 1. The surprise slotting recalled the Damaged Justice tour, when the song was a nightly staple, and sparked instant speculation that Denver was receiving a heritage-nod set list tailored for old-school aficionados.

Associations from the past layered the moment with extra resonance. Many in the crowd had first heard “Harvester” on the Binge & Purge box set or watched 1989’s Seattle footage where Hetfield, sporting blond moustache and white Explorer, stalked the stage much as he did tonight—proof that some stagecraft never ages. Younger fans mouthed every lyric thanks to streaming-era discovery, uniting generations in a single guttural chorus.

Midway through the outro, Trujillo and Hammett exchanged a knowing grin before teasing a bar of “The Frayed Ends of Sanity,” another Justice gem, then whipping back into the final riff. It was a wink only deep divers caught, but it underscored the set’s theme: honoring their most complex era while still pushing forward with new ragers like “72 Seasons.”

After the last chord rang out, Hetfield paused, letting feedback hang. “Denver,” he rasped, “you just helped us resurrect one wicked monster.” The cheer that followed rivaled the decibel level of any football Sunday, a testament to how much this territory cherishes heavy metal folklore.

Social media metrics erupted almost instantly. Within two hours, fan-shot 4K clips labeled “Harvester LIVE Denver” amassed hundreds of thousands of views, while setlist.fm logged a spike of edits confirming the song’s rare placement at slot #2. Comment threads filled with veteran fans proclaiming the performance “Justice tour tight” and newcomers calling it “the heaviest song I’ve ever heard live.”

Critics too took notice. Westword hailed the rendition as “proof Metallica can still dig deep into the dark well that first set them apart,” while Ticketmaster’s blog called it “the evening’s emotional apex,” praising the decision to juxtapose it with brand-new material rather than wallow solely in nostalgia.

By show’s end—after “Master of Puppets” closed the night in pyro-bombed grandeur—attendees poured onto Federal Boulevard buzzing about that early-set knockout punch. Some clutched limited-edition Denver posters featuring an undead farmer Eddie reaping souls beneath a blood-red moon, a merch design rushed out precisely because “Harvester” had reclaimed the spotlight.

Long after the amplifiers cooled, the memory lingered: a 37-year-old composition roaring back to life, louder and meaner than ever, harvesting sorrows and forging fresh ones for a new generation of head-bangers. And in the annals of Metallica’s sprawling live lore, June 27 2025 now stands among those rare nights when a deep classic didn’t merely resurface—it conquered.