Metallica's Lessons in Longevity
What the Virginia Tech football program should learn from the Metallica concert
Seventy thousand jumping, screaming people definitely qualifies as a major concert.
Metallica performance last week was the Virginia Tech event of the spring, with the band finally playing “Enter Sandman” live in Lane Stadium.
The night appears to have been a memorable one for all Hokies (both those in attendance and, like me, watching clips on YouTube and X).
The band seems to have really enjoyed the performance, as well, with posts on X that go well beyond the obligatory niceties.
All this got me thinking about the other dates on the M72 tour as well past shows that Metallica has played.
The mother of all concerts
Metallica has been a big draw for decades, both as a headlining act and at music festivals.
One of the bigger shows they have played was Woodstock ‘94. Best estimates are that around 150k people were in attendance when Metallica took the stage.
Five years later, at least 100k saw the band at Woodstock ‘99.
The M72 tour has featured shows in other stadiums, most of which are in the 50k capacity range.
Those are all big numbers, but they pale in comparison to the biggest show Metallica has played - Monsters of Rock, which they co-headlined with AC/DC in August 1991 in Moscow, USSR.
Yes, Metallica played a concert in the Soviet Union, and it was one for the record books.
Between 800k and 1.6 million people showed up, including a sizable slice of the Soviet military.
And no, those figures are not typos. Check out the restored concert video if you don’t believe me.
It was like Yasgur’s Farm, except transplanted to Tushino Airfield along Volokalomskoye Shosse in Northwest Moscow.
The Tushino site, about five miles from where I lived in the Mitino district from 2013-14, now includes Otkritiye Stadium, where the Spartak Moscow soccer club plays its home games.
Back in 1991, it was just a wide open, Soviet military site.
Speaking of militaries, forget what you’ve heard about The Cold War. The communist jig was up when the August putsch failed, but the reason it failed is because the system had rotted from the inside-out.
Systemic rot was personified by all the headbanging Red Army soldiers in attendance at Monsters of Rock just five weeks after the failed coup.
Music and film, not the CIA and “soft power” NGOs, won The Cold War.
Now
Let my people go, land of Goshen
Go
I will be with thee, bush of fire
Blood
Running red and strong, down the Nile
Plague
Darkness three days long, hail to fire
Metallica led off its set in Moscow by playing Enter Sandman and followed it with Creeping Death, a song about the tenth plague of Egypt, which gave rise to the Jewish feast of Passover.
The dual meaning of “Let my people go” was surely not lost on Soviet concertgoers. Lead singer James Hetfield screamed the line into the microphone as the crowd went crazy.
Meanwhile, back in the Kremlin, the apparatchiks threw back another swig.
That Metallica would play this song, indeed play the concert at all, reveals their true fearlessness as a band.
And, it should be noted, I cannot remember the band ever getting caught up in the politics of the moment, not in 1991 and not in 2025.
This is a band that keeps distractions to a minimum. The magic comes via their connection to their fans.
Lessons
Last week’s successful concert yields many important insights for a Virginia Tech football program that has been wondering in the college football wilderness for more than a decade.
I’ll start with lessons from the band before proceeding to lessons from the event.
What Metallica can teach the Hokies
Stick to the winning formula
Let the product evolve, but demand high quality
The connection with fans is everything
Sticking to a winning formula is not as easy as it sounds. In fact, finding a winning formula is much more difficult than most people realize.
Consider the Brent Pry era, which was supposed to be Beamer 2.0.
Pry got his start under Beamer back in the glory days. He promised a renewed focus on in-state recruiting. Heck, even Bill Roth returned to the booth to call games.
Whit Babcock went all in on the Greatest Hits.
What we’ve all gotten is more of the same (or worse) in the results column.
Leadership did not understand Tech’s winning formula.
Virginia Tech became a premier program by playing an unconventional brand of football. The Hokies made opposing teams uncomfortable by threatening to score on every single play - not just when they had the ball.
This threat required hypervigilance by the opposition, which often led to mistakes.
Fans of a certain age will remember how it looked when quarterbacks and punters and offensive linemen all visually trembled pre-snap.
Often, stress was induced by personnel quirks: quarterbacks who were the best athletes on the field, elite running backs who wen under-recruited, undersized, quick-off-the-edge pass rushers, and All-Americans on the pride and joy (punt block) team.
These players were effective because they had the requisite talent, but most importantly, it was an attitude thing. They program sold them on the ability to win big by being different.
Attitude led to winning, which led to increased confidence.
Attitude on the field has been in short supply in recent years, and the downstream effects have been glaring.
Can you imagine Metallica without attitude?
It’s not a pretty thought.
Metallica - Attitude = 60-something year-old has-beens
With attitude and strategy in alignment, then the question of product comes into play.
Notice, Metallica in 1991 did not look a lot like Metallica in 2025. Guys in their 60s can’t head-bang like guys in their 20s.
But the band recognized that in 1991 it was getting by on pure energy.
Take another look at the video from Tushino Airfield.
Most of the fans were so far from the stage that they couldn’t see anything. Facilities were probably on par with, or worse than, the original Woodstock. And all the songs were of the metal variety, sounding pretty much the same to the casual listener.
In short, Metallica had a narrow path to victory (selling tons of tickets and putting on a good show).
Fast forward almost 35 years and the band’s concert production value is much higher. The band plays in nice stadiums, which are decked out with everything that a gazillion tractor-trailers can hold.
Even the song catalogue has evolved. The band plays lots of metal, but also hard rock and catchier, radio-friendly tunes.
Despite advancing age, the band has succeeded in widening its path to victory.
And the one thing that has remained constant throughout the band’s entire professional journey is its unrelenting focus on connecting with its fans.
Contrast that with the football program, where players now shuttle in and out at an extreme pace.
It doesn’t help that the coaching staff doesn’t let the players talk freely with the media. How are fans supposed to connect with the team if they do not know anyone’s personality?
One last point on this topic. Chris Coleman of TechSideline recently talked about how many vacant store fronts there are now in Blacksburg.
The football team cannot be a vacuum into which all money flows, while everyone else struggles.
The program needs to value the town, not just “the fans”.
Home games fill up restaurants and bring in revenue that covers for slower times throughout the year, but the football team should also be actively working to support local businesses during the offseason.
Hokie X, and social media more broadly, has been pretty toxic for years. A lot of that would fade away if the fanbase had more of a connection to the team.
That can come directly (coach the players up on media relations then encourage all of them to talk to journalists all the time) or indirectly (word of mouth travels far in a small town - if the players go out of their way to get butts in seats at local restaurants, people will find out and truly appreciate them).
It turns out Jaylin Lane is one of the finest human beings the program has ever produced. Why didn’t I know that until the NFL Draft?
What the concert can teach Virginia Tech
The fact that the major athletic facilities sit dormant for most of the year is a huge missed (revenue) opportunity
The Spring Game has been dulled down to the point where it is no longer a draw - schedule other major events in the spring
The right acts can sell a boatload of tickets in Blacksburg
Lane Stadium is a college football cathedral. But even the church gets more out of its massive houses of worship than Virginia Tech does from its football stadium.
There are 365 days in a year and Lane hosts what, seven home games per year plus the Spring Game.
That means 98% of days the stadium is not generating income, which is atrocious from a business perspective.
There should definitely be more concerts there, but other events too. The same goes for other sports facilities on campus.
It’s a win-win. Events bring in money and they also give people something to do, which is no small thing in rural Southwest Virginia.
Early May is a perfect time to host big events. It should become an annual tradition.
With nice weather and the semester almost over, people are in the mood to have a good time.
And it’s not like a major concert, or other event, would be competing with much in the area.
After how well the Metallica concert went, I imagine booking other major acts has gotten a lot easier. Virginia Tech needs to capitalize on this momentum.
It would be a major strategic blunder to let the magic of this particular moment wear off without building something lasting.