Cliff Burton's last Metallica setlist played again in Ljungby, 40 years on
Cliff Burton died on September 27, 1986, when Metallica's tour bus crashed near Dörarp, Sweden. On September 26, 2026, a 40th Remembrance Day in nearby Ljungby ended with the tribute band Metaholica playing the full setlist from his last show, at Solnahallen in Stockholm on September 26, 1986.
By Riffiter
Forty years after Cliff Burton died, the town nearest the crash played his last concert again. On Saturday, September 26, the Cliff Burton Museum at Laganland held a 40th Remembrance Day in Ljungby, Sweden, and that night the tribute band Metaholica played the full setlist Metallica played at Solnahallen in Stockholm on September 26, 1986. Smålandsposten, reporting from the event, described it as "the same setlist as the final evening that Cliff was with them".
The last show
Burton played his last concert at Solnahallen the night before he died. Per setlist.fm, the band ran 16 songs and a guitar solo, with two encores:
| Main set | Encores |
|---|---|
| Battery | The Four Horsemen |
| Master of Puppets | Guitar solo |
| For Whom the Bell Tolls | Am I Evil? (Diamond Head cover) |
| Welcome Home (Sanitarium) | Damage, Inc. |
| Ride the Lightning | Blitzkrieg (Blitzkrieg cover) |
| (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth | Fight Fire With Fire |
| Whiplash | |
| The Thing That Should Not Be | |
| Fade to Black | |
| Seek & Destroy | |
| Creeping Death |
It was also James Hetfield's first night back on guitar. He had broken his wrist in July, and John Marshall covered rhythm guitar through the show in Norway on September 25.
September 27, 1986
Early the next morning the tour bus left the road near Dörarp, about 12 miles north of Ljungby, and turned over. Burton was thrown through a window and killed. He was 24. The driver blamed black ice. That has been disputed since: police found no evidence of ice, and no charges were filed. Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett survived. A memorial stone stands at the roadside, engraved with his dates, February 10, 1962, and September 27, 1986.
Three records
Burton made three studio albums with Metallica. "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth" on Kill 'Em All is credited to him alone. He has a writing credit on six of the eight songs on Ride the Lightning. Master of Puppets came out on March 3, 1986, six months before the crash, and it carries "Orion", the 8:27 instrumental he wrote most of.
Flemming Rasmussen, who produced the last two, put it plainly: "All decisions, more or less, had to go through Cliff."
Newsted, this week
Jason Newsted joined weeks after the crash and stayed until 2001. Talking to Heavy Consequence for the anniversary, he said: "Maybe if I try really hard, I could be a tenth of as good as that."