Metallica is back in the U.S. Top 10 with the release of its latest live set, S&M2 with the San Francisco Symphony. The set, which entered the Billboard 200 albums chart at Number Four, sold 56,000 equivalent units in its first week, and was culled from the band's September 2019 venue opening shows at San Francisco’s Chase Center. Although it fell short of the top spot Stateside, S&M2 hit Number One on the Australian, Belgian, Dutch, German, and Scottish charts. S&M2 peaked at Number Two in the UK.
The album is newly re-edited by the band with remixed and remastered audio for a whole new sound from the original theatrical run in October 2019.
Prior to the recent classical team-up, Metallica last played with the San Francisco Symphony in 1999, with the performance released as the Grammy Award-winning live album S&M. Drummer Lars Ulrich recalled being more focused than usual for that show: ["When you play as many shows as we do, sometimes you have a tendency to sit and look at the lighting rig, and the shows in San Francisco were probably the most focused and the most — y'know, it was really sort of like being part of a team. When you’re four guys, it’s one thing, but when you’re, like, 90 guys or whatever, it’s sort of like a different thing. So everybody really stepped up to the plate."] SOUNDCUE (:20 OC: . . . to the plate)