Metallica win a Best Metal Performance Grammy of "Better Than You." Metallica receive a Diamond Award from the Recording Industry Association of America for selling over 10 million copies of Metallica (The Black Album). Other artists to get the Diamond Award include Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Prince. James Hetfield thanks producer Bob Rock "for making the big noises extra big."
April 7, 1999
Mayor Willie Brown honors Metallica by proclaiming it Metallica Day in San Francisco. The band get their own plaque on the Walk of Fame on Grove Street.
April 21 & 22, 1999
Metallica perform with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at Berkeley Community Theater. The 100-plus members of the symphony are directed by composer/arranger Michael Kamen. Hetfield jokes that the band is thinking of turning the orchestra pit into a mosh pit, and that the stage show, in keeping with the pyrotechnics on their last tour, may feature a "flaming violinist." Michael Kamen's history with Metallica dates back to 1991 when he orchestrated "Nothing Else Matters" for the band's self-titled album.
"I'm proud of the fact that we made a record that isn't a f***ing Metallica live album with a bunch of symphony bits scattered around in the background. It truly is a combination of Metallica and the orchestra equally represented. Whether in thirty years it'll stand up to what Deep Purple did with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969 or some of Pink Flyod's stuff with Kamen at the Berlin Wall in 1990, I don't know. But in Metallica's history, it will be one of the key elements."
--Lars Ulrich (San Francisco Chronicle)
June 24, 1999
Metallica play the Woodstock Festival in Bethel, N.Y., joining bands like Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine and Kid Rock.
November, 1999
Metallica play two live S&M shows, one at Madison Square Garden, with the New York with the New York Symphony orchestra and one in Germany with Babelsberger Film Orchester.
November 23, 1999
S&M live CD, recorded at shows at the Berkeley Community Theater, is released. S&M is short for "Symphony and Metallica."
December 31, 1999
Metallica ring in the New Millennium with Ted Nugent, Sevendust and Kid Rock at a New Year's Eve show in Pontiac, Mich. The bands jam together on Kiss' "Detroit Rock City."
February 23, 2000
Metallica win a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance for "Whiskey In The Jar." Other nominations in the category include Alice In Chains, Buckcherry, Kid Rock, Korn, and Limp Bizkit.
