Metallica coming to Prague in 2018

Hard rock band Metallica will come to Prague's O2 Arena on April 2, 2018. Tickets go on sale to fan club members on March 21, 2017, to Live Nation club members March 22 and the general public March 24.

The opening act is Kvelertak from Norway. The extensive tour starts in Norway and circles Europe to wrap up in Finland.

Fans who buy tickets will get the recent Metallica album Hardwired... To Self-Destruct either in physical from or as a download, and will get more information about that via email for the ticket seller. People who want physical copies will pay postage. If you already have the album, you can send the additional copy to someone else. There are also premium ticket packages available including a meet and greet in some locations.

Hardwired... to Self-Destruct is the band's 10h studio album. It was released as a double album on November 18, 2016, by their label Blackened Recordings and is their first studio album in eight years following 2008's Death Magnetic — the band's longest gap between two studio albums. It was produced by Greg Fidelman, who engineered and mixed Death Magnetic.

The album was Metallica's sixth consecutive studio album to debut at number one on the US Billboard 200 and topped the charts in 57 countries. The album has sold over three million copies worldwide. Critical reception of the album was mostly positive. Dom Lawson of The Guardian called it Metallica's “finest record in 25 years” but he criticized the second disc for not being as good as the first.

Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph partly agreed, saying if the album was half as long it would have been twice as effective. He described the album as “80 minutes of in-your-face shouty rage with absolutely no let-up,” which was meant as a compliment.

Metallica was last in Prague in 2014 for the By Request tour, where they played different sets in every city based on local requests sent over the internet before the show. The Prague show featured mostly big hits, while some other places went for more obscure songs. They have been in Prague six times since 1996.

Fore more information on tickets visit www.livenation.cz or www.facebook.com/LiveNationCZ.