They've been here 7, soon to be 8, times. Here's a rundown of Metallica's Borderland visits.

Metallica first popped up around here supporting "Kill 'em All".  They played the Corbett Center on the NMSU campus in Cruces. It's still there but, way different than in the early 80's.

The tour for the followup album, "Ride The Lightning", brought Metallica to a bar ... yep, a bar ... on El Paso's east side. Check out the pics! It was called The Big Apple and Armored Saint opened.  (Don't look for it, it's long gone.)

Metallica next played the Coliseum opening for Ozzy on the "Master Of Puppets" tour.  After that, things really exploded for the band and Metallica never again opened for anybody!

The next 2 visits took place in the Don Haskins Center. With Queensryche as the opening act, they played there on the ...And Justice For All Tour around '89 and came back ... alone ... on the "Metallica" tour in '92.

Shortly after that, they returned to NMSU, (Aggie Memorial Stadium), with Faith No More and Guns And Roses. Metallica volunteered to go on before G n R for these shows. They knew that taking their rightful place as headliners would leave them at the mercy of Axl Rose's behavior. In those days he was a mess so, Metallica chose to get their licks in before any G ‘N’ R nonsense ruined the evening!

Around '97, it was back to Cruces with Korn as support to play their biggest, custom designed stage and production setup yet. (The "accident" segment was awesome! Watch it in this NSFW video.)  These were the "Load/Re-Load" days and a lot of people missed it.

A freak snowstorm brought El Paso and Las Cruces to their knees that day. I-10 was closed, in both directions, almost all the way to Colorado. 28 through Mesilla was treacherous but, that's how my friend and I ... and a few other brave souls ... made it.  Afterwards, highways were still closed, every hotel room in Las Cruces got booked and many were forced to spend the night in the Pan Am center.

Hopefully, the weather will be way more cooperative for their February 28th, 2019 return to El Paso! Tickets go on sale Friday, 3/2/2018, via Ticketmaster.

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