Madison Cinemas hosted one of its first live-streamed rock concerts at its right-hand theater recently. And what a way to begin with a group like Metallica!

The undisputed kings of heavy metal music performed two concerts at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas. Live streams were broadcasted at the theater on August 18 and 20, the following nights featured replays of those shows. I had the ability to attend both live nights, but witnessing it either way does not damper the exceptional emotional impact of Metallica’s music. Superfans such as myself kept their heads banging during the isolation period of the pandemic in 2020 when the band posted fully filmed concerts across their career on their YouTube page. During the pre-chorus of the song “Lux Æterna” (from the band’s recent album 72 Seasons) lead singer James Hetfield announces the mission statement of a Metallica concert: “Full speed or nothing,” four words that still applied to the euphoric, in-the-moment feeling of watching in a virtually setting those past shows and the two in Dallas.

Metallica has not released (and should absolutely not release!) a greatest hits compilation, but in a sense the Dallas shows were essentially that: setlists of rip-roaring metal classics across the band’s catalog that thrashed, grooved, invoked, and satisfied completely. Oh, and the gargantuan stage set made it absolutely cooler!

The shows were live streamed to more than 2,600 theaters in 75 countries. On top of that, and with Metallica racking up more than 125 million albums sold worldwide, their consistency of selling out stadiums and arenas for more than 30 years, and producing more merchandise than could fill the Mall of America, I couldn’t help but come away thinking that the shows represented the commercial apex of metal. Sure, if you’re a sincere metal fan, that does not sound super flattering. But even the subculture’s most evangelical supporters, for whom occasional elitism could be very off putting, should not be unhappy nor dismissive of that. Because what the total concert experience ultimately became was a global celebration of heavy metal with its greatest band, before possibly 100,000 in Dallas, and however many around the world. That collective feeling culminated on the second night when the band performed its Grammy-award winning cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Whiskey in the Jar,” as black and yellow balloons poured over the ground-level audience.

Other highlights from the shows included songs from 72 Seasons, such as “Shadows Follow” and its title track, the stomping “Leper Messiah,” “Hardwired” and “Master of Puppets,” the latter of which is already one of the single greatest pieces of music ever created.

Other music-related shows at Madison Cinemas to look out for are “Carlos: The Santana Journey” premiering on Saturday, Sept. 23, and Saturday showings of the Metropolitan Opera running through from Oct. 21 to May 11, 2024.