Metallica‘s WorldWired tour kicked off in 2016. Every night, about two-thirds of the way through the set, there was a jam: Rob Trujillo and Kirk Hammett’s Doodle. In Amsterdam in the summer of 2017, on the second of two nights at the Ziggo Dome, the pair changed things up and added a ragged cover of Golden Earring’s Radar Love to the Doodle. A tradition was born. A local song, for local people. And it’s happened at most Metallica shows in the years since.
It’s rough and ready. The parts are learned before the performance, and Rob reads the lyrics from a music stand. They’re often in a foreign language. But it’s become one of the most anticipated parts of the show.
In Minneapolis in 2018, they covered When Doves Cry as a tribute to local hero Prince. In Stockholm, Abba’s Dancing Queen was wheeled out. In London, it was Iron Maiden‘s Killers. You get the idea.
Some of the artists they cover are established, while others require a little more local knowledge. For every Black Sabbath or Rammstein or Lynyrd Skynyrd or A-Ha (yes, they tackled Take On Me in Oslo), there’s a song by Indianapolis hardcore punks Zero Boys or Portuguese rockers Xutos & Pontapés.
Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it isn’t. Anyone who saw the pair labour their way through The Stone Roses’ I Wanna Be Adored in Manchester in 2019 will have no difficulty in associating the phrase ‘damp squib’ with the experience, while their version of Celtic Frost‘s The Usurper – played in Zurich in May of the same year – drew complaints from Frost frontman Tom G. Warrior.
“They butchered it, and it was humiliating,” he moaned. “Why don’t they leave their millionaire fingers off it? They’ve long lost the ability to play true metal, in my opinion.”
For the M72 tour, with its no-repeat weekends, Rob and Kirk (or “My friend Rob” and “My friend Kirk” as James Hetfield invariably introduces them) changed things again. Initially, on night one, they’d play a Doodle they’d just composed, and leave the local choices to night two.
The self-written Doodle didn’t always work, and for the final leg of the M72 tour in 2026, they were dropped, with local Doodles once again the focus. They don’t always work either, but when they do, they really work. And, for some reason, it’s often the Eastern European choices that work best.
Take Jožin Z Bažin, originally by Czech musician Ivan Mládek, performed as a doodle in Prague in 2018. It’s a comedy folk song about a mysterious, swamp-dwelling man-eating monster, and the stadium erupts when it’s played. The crowd bellows along, Rob and Kirk sound like the greatest, drunkest wedding band ever, and everyone goes home knowing they witnessed something entirely unique.
Our Metallica Doodle Map is below. It features every local Doodle performed on the WorldWired and M72 tours. Zoom in and pick a show, and you’ll be able to watch Kirk and Rob at work.
