A diary of my trip to Colorado to see Metallica on the M72 World Tour in June-July 2025.

I was down to my last planned stop on the M72 World Tour. After three years of following Metallica, Denver was the last city I picked to visit to see them. I had never been to Colorado before, and it seemed like an obvious choice.

I originally planned to buy a Lux Æterna Platform for the shows with seven other people. The platforms are elevated and close to the stage and are the ultimate Metallica luxury experience. Despite my Metallica Legacy Fan Club membership, I was unable to get one because they sold out instantly. That was a huge letdown, but I wanted to buy tickets and go anyway.

I asked Susan to join me and she agreed. She had a second home in Denver for a spell and had a lot of friends in the area so I knew she would be a great trip planner and tour guide. Chris said he’d still like to go with his wife Nicole because it was her birthday weekend. So, I grabbed tickets for four seats (Gasp, no Snake Pit or general admission!) and we planned flights and accommodations.

My expectations for the trip were to take in the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains and to watch The Greatest Band of All Time put on two killer shows. I wanted to rent a Harley and spend two days on the road riding through the mountains.

Our plan was to fly out on the Monday before the first show on Friday and rent a bike for two days that week. But the weather forecast looked terrible for the entire region on Tuesday and Wednesday. So, we changed our flights and hotel reservation and took off on Wednesday instead and scheduled our return for the following Wednesday. We would ride on the following Monday and Tuesday when the forecast looked more promising. At least, that’s what we thought.

Wednesday June 25, 2025

Susan and I left early for our uneventful flight from Newark to Denver. The car rental process became a bit of a saga, and we had a bit of a drive to our first destination, Colorado Springs. I was tired of traveling by the time we got there and wanted to take it easy.

Susan booked a room at a quaint motel called Buffalo Lodge Bicycle Resort. It was a century old and was festooned with bicycles throughout the property. Had we had more time there, we could have borrowed one of their complementary bikes and rode around town.

We grabbed a locally brewed beer at the bar, something I would go on to find there is a lot of in Colorado. I was about halfway into finishing my IPA when I began to feel the effects. That was my first indication that not being at sea-level would make things different for me.

The motel receptionist gave us a recommendation for a restaurant called Swirl in neighboring Manitou Springs. She said she made her boyfriend take her there when she was in the mood for something fancy. That gave me a good laugh. We grabbed an Uber and rode into town.

Manitou Springs is a tourist trap with century-old charm. The mountain views were stunning. The stunning mountain views would go on to be a common refrain for the rest of the trip.

We ate dinner at Swirl Restaurant and Wine Bar, then visited Manitou Brewing Company. A mild shower passed by, and it made a rainbow in front of the mountains.

The town shut down early, so we went back to the motel for one more round. A local band was finishing up their set, and we had a friendly conversation with one of the other visitors. It was a good, relaxing start to the trip.

Thursday June 26, 2025

Susan picked Colorado Springs as our first destination because she wanted us to visit Garden of the Gods, a rock formation in front of Pike’s Peak Mountain. It was only a few miles from our motel. We wanted breakfast so I quickly searched for a restaurant with a view, and we drove to The Garden of The Gods Resort.

We found our view at the restaurant there. It looked so fancy that Susan was initially concerned we were not dressed well enough to get in. That was not the case, and they sat us on the deck facing the rocks and the mountains.

The panoramic view from our table was stunning. A mule deer wandered up the hill and munched on the perfectly landscaped flowers while I ate my breakfast burrito. After breakfast, we wandered the resort grounds to see the views and take a few pictures.

Following that, we drove to The Garden of The Gods Welcome Center. The welcome center has a small museum with artifacts and information about the local rock formations. There was even display about the various types of animal poop one might encounter in the area.

We were early for our e-bike tour reservation, so we walked along a short hiking trail to see parts of the rocks. The views were pretty wild and the weather was perfect.

We went back to the welcome center to check in for the e-bike tour. The guide showed us how to ride an e-bike. I’m an avid motorcyclist and Susan is a competitive bicycle racer, but neither of us had ever operated an e-bike so it took a few minutes for us to settle in.

But once we did, the ride was a lot of fun. It was just the two of us on the tour, so we had our guide’s full attention. He took us all around the rock formations so we could see them from every angle. We made a few stops to walk around and see them up close. They all had names and stories behind them. Most of that was lost on me, I just thought it looked cool.

Colorado Springs turned out to be a cool place to visit. The sightseeing was spectacular and the food was enjoyable. We wrapped up and drove back to Denver and checked into our hotel on Little Raven Street near the South Plate River.

We went for a walk around the neighborhood and found a restaurant named Linger for dinner. Apparently, it was once a mortuary before being converted into a restaurant. Sweet!

I learned that night that Denver is not a late-night town. Everything was closing or closed by the time we finished dinner. We walked around a bit, found a place for a nightcap, and called it a night.

Friday June 27, 2025

Unfortunately, both of us had to wake up and work remotely on Friday. But it was going to be a good day anyway, we were going to see Metallica!

Unlike most of the stadiums we’ve visited on this tour, Empower Field at Mile High Stadium is in the middle of the city and surrounded by eateries and bars. We settled on Briar Common Brewery + Eatery as a meeting place and found Chris and Nicole there for a pre-show happy hour and dinner.

I met a guy named Joe who was there by himself to see the show. He had also followed Metallica around and had seen them numerous times. We finished up and walked two blocks to the stadium in time to get our complimentary Metallica Yeti bottles and get to our seats in time for Limp Bizkit to take the stage.

Limp Bizkit was one of my favorite bands in the early 2000’s. They were somewhat brutish and banal, but their music really moved me, and singing along was fun. I got to see them from the Snakepit in Philadelphia earlier in the year and because of the rain that night, DJ Lethal could not complete the set after his equipment fried.

This time around, the weather was perfect and they played a high intensity set. Wes Borland donned an outfit and wig that imitated James Hetfield’s look from the early 1980’s.

I wasn’t used to sitting in seats on this tour and we had a great view of the crowd which participated fully throughout the set. I got the impression that the band really enjoyed playing to a willing crowd of that size.

I guess the one advantage to having seats was that we could sit down in between sets. After what seemed like forever, the lights dimmed and “Long Way to The Top” blared from the speakers in the center of the stadium. It was time.

Metallica took the stage and tore into “Creeping Death”. Amidst my excitement, I noticed that the audio was much different from the stands than it was earlier on the tour when I was standing in general admission. The mix was much cleaner, and I could distinctly hear all four instruments. The view of the stage was cool, too. I could easily see all four band members at any time which is impossible from general admission or the Snakepit. Maybe this perspective would not be so bad.

Having seen them so many times on this tour, the set was familiar at this point. That did not make it any less exciting. The audience hung on every note, singing along and pumping their fists in the air. Even from the stands I felt connected to the audience and the band.

Metallica played “Holier Than Thou” in the third slot which brought me back to the first M72 show we saw in Paris two years prior when they also played it. I love that they stuck with this song for so long on the tour, it is an unheralded “Black Album” classic.

“If Darkness Had a Son” stood out to me as well, the Hetfield-lead “Temptation!” chant brought the energy in the stadium to a fever pitch. Watching the band play “Orion” near the drumkit was a near-religious experience. The pyro during the intro to “Fuel” was stunning and brought a huge cheer from the crowd.

They brought it home with “Seek and Destroy” (featuring exactly 72 beach balls being dropped from the lighting towers into the crowd) and “Master of Puppets”. We were drained and so was the crowd.

We walked along the river and made our way back to Little Raven Street. It was among the easiest commutes back to our hotel after a concert on the whole tour.

Saturday June 28, 2025

Saturday was earmarked as “Tourist in Denver Day” so we got up and headed into town. I had to run an errand. I forgot to pack a pair of jeans for the planned motorcycle ride on Monday so we took an Uber to the Cherry Creek mall so I could buy a pair.

The mall is directly across the street from Urban Egg, so we went there for brunch. I ordered the breakfast burrito, and it was slamming good!

Something I enjoyed about Denver was the shared e-scooters scattered throughout the city. I once lived in Hoboken, NJ and they had Lime e-scooters for a few months. The local Karens complained that they felt unsafe because of them, so the city declined to bring them back after the first season. Not Denver, they embrace personal travel devices, and they were plentiful across the city. They are so much more convenient and fun than using Uber to get around.

After breakfast we took Lime Scooters along the Cherry Creek Trail to get back to the hotel. The trail is below street level and serves as a straight shot to get through the city with several points of entry. Riding up and down that trail turned out to be one of the most fun things we did in Denver.

Earlier in the trip, I noticed an amusement park near the river called Elitch Gardens. I suggested we head over for the afternoon. It was neat to find something like that in the middle of the day, we walked through and hit a few of the roller coasters.

After making it through most of the afternoon there, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. We planned to meet Chris and Nicole for dinner and drinks. We started off with a happy hour at a rooftop bar with nice views of the city called Sorry Gorgeous. It was one of the better views we had of the city while we were on the trip, we could see skyscrapers with the Rocky Mountains off in the distance.

We met Chris and Nicole for dinner at Fish N Beer. I ordered fish and beer. We had a fun time with Chris and Nicole. Chris has an interesting career arc, and he is full of stories about it. He certainly is a fascinating guy to have dinner with.

Following dinner, we went to TRVE Brewing Company which is a heavy metal-themed bar. The décor was interesting, but the music was boring and the bar was dead. It wasn’t a very good showing for a heavy metal bar considering the greatest heavy metal band of all time was there to play two concerts that weekend.

We spent some time at TRVE and Chris and Nicole called it a night. Susan and I found a nearby bar named Hi-Dive. A band was playing when we got there but wrapped their set shortly thereafter, and the crowd cleared out. It became apparent to me that nightlife in Denver really isn’t a thing. Without much else to do, we called it a night.

Sunday June 29, 2025

Today was going to be a big day, we were going to see Metallica one last time on the US leg of the M72 World Tour! We started the day with brunch at Syrup Cap Hill. I was impressed with brunch for the second day in a row.

After we ate, we went to Downtown Aquarium Denver. This was the most exotic aquarium we saw on our M72 travels. They had two piebald chuckwallas, and two critically endangered Sumatran Tigers. I liked the tigers; they reminded me of my cats Ozzy and Lemmy.

This was the 9^th city that I had seen on the M72 World Tour, but I had yet to get one of the t-shirts made specifically for one of the shows. Either the lines were too long, or they were sold out before I could get one every time I tried. But Chris got on the line at the merchandise stand before the show on Friday and got me one. I had time after the aquarium, so I returned the favor by getting on the merchandise stand line and buying us the corresponding Sunday shirts.

Susan organized a get-together with some local friends at the Patio at Sloan’s before the show. We met Chris and Nicole there for something to eat. Having time for a civilized dinner was a rare luxury on the M72 World Tour. For the most part we had general admission tickets, so we had to get there early to secure a good spot near the stage. Since we had seats for Denver, there was no rush to get there.

We arrived in time to see most of Pantera’s set. I was happy, but Susan declared that she had seen enough of Pantera on the tour. I don’t get what her problem was.

After Pantera finished, we had one last one hour wait for our final Metallica set on the M72 World tour. I really felt the gravity of the situation, having followed the tour for three years across four countries. As bittersweet as the moment was, my head was ready to explode when the lights went off.

Predictably, Metallica opened the set with Whiplash, and the crowd went wild. I don’t recall any other tour where Whiplash was the opener, but it was the perfect choice for the M72 layout. It immediately whipped the crowd into a frenzy and set the energy level to high.

Watching these last two shows from the stands turned out to be better than I thought it would. I wasn’t close enough to have James sweat on me or catch any picks at the end of the show, but the layout of the stage in the center of the field and the crowd activity made it feel like an intimate affair anyway.

The sound quality is also a lot better from the outside of the speakers, rather than on the inside, which is how you listen when you are close to the stage. We could see every inch of the stage, see all four band members clearly, and hear every note perfectly throughout the entire show.

From our great vantage point, we spent the rest of the show letting Metallica batter our senses as they tore through the set. The highlights for me were in the middle of the show with powerful renditions of some of my favorites, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Wherever I May Roam, and The Call of Ktulu.

Following the grand finale of Enter Sandman, the band gave thanks to the crew for their work on the US leg of the M72 World Tour. It was hard to believe that after three years, it would be my last Metallica concert on home soil on this tour.

Monday June 30, 2025

Now that the Metallica part of the vacation was over, it was time to move on to our second priority for the trip: ride a Harley through the Rocky Mountains. I booked a full-bagger rental at Easy Rider in Denver.

The plan was to ride to Breckenridge for the day, and to return the next day, forming a scenic route in both directions. I asked for advice in a Facebook motorcycle group and picked out the best ideas I could find for the route. Easy Rider would let us stash our suitcases and remaining luggage there while we rode so we just packed the essentials for the two days.

We arrived at Eagle Rider as soon as they opened. The receptionist checked me in and insisted I get the walk away insurance for the bike. I thought it was a bit of an upsell, but I also assumed that they would come after me for thousands of dollars if I somehow chipped the paint so went ahead with it.

We rented a Harley in Paris and in Sedona on earlier stops on the M72 World Tour, but this was the biggest bike of the three. It had two hard saddlebags and a top case for storage. It was much bigger and heavier than the Fat Boy that I own.

We loaded the bike up and Susan got on back. I fired it up and struggled to engage first gear with the clutch. The friction zone was in a different place than mine and I had a hard time finding it. It took me a few tries, but I managed to pull away from the curb and head towards the highway. I felt uneasy on the bike; it was much bigger and bulkier than anything I had been on before, but once I was moving it was fine.

We left the city on and headed west on CO-74. The views as we headed towards the mountains were already stunning. Susan suggested we stop at Red Rocks Amphitheater which was along the route.

There was no event at the time, but the amphitheater was open to the public. It was a long walk uphill and then upstairs to get all the way up there, but it was a very cool view from the top.

We got back on the bike and headed west towards a small town named Georgetown at the northern terminus of Guanella Pass Road. On a map, this looked like an awesome road with hundreds of turns and twists traversing a big mountain.

I felt like the motorcycle trip really started when we hit Guanella pass road. Lots of ups and downs and vistas as far as the eye can see. I had to focus on keeping the bike under control on the hairpin turns while trying to take everything in. We passed a herd of Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep that were hanging out on the road.

We stopped at a scenic rest area at the top of the mountain. Susan pointed out that the mountain range we were looking at had no trees above a certain point indicating that the elevation was at about 11,500 feet.

We got back on the bike to continue south down Guanella Pass Road. I approached the exit of the parking lot and came to a stop to look for cross traffic. Before I knew what happened, I felt the bike going down and dumped it.

The bike was nearly at a standstill when it came down, and we both hit the asphalt. Before I could even move, I checked with Susan to ask if she was OK and she said yes. The bike hadn’t landed on either of us, and we didn’t fall hard enough to get hurt.

I was shocked. I could only recall one time I dropped a bike that was moving and it was in my first year as a bike owner in 1999 in a gas station parking lot. I have over 130,000 miles of riding experience since then, so I felt like I knew what I was doing. I even hit a deer while travelling 55 miles per hour in upstate New York with Susan on back and the bike didn’t go down.

While I was still gathering my thoughts, the 800 lb. bike was laying on the ground and leaking brake fluid from the front brake reservoir. The bike’s tilt mechanism cut the engine off. I started to lift the bike, and Susan grabbed it from the back and helped me get it upright. I didn’t even stop to think that was the wrong way to do it, but what we did worked.

I surveyed the damage. The right saddlebag was scratched and the tip of the front brake lever snapped off. Between us not getting injured and me buying the walk away insurance earlier in the day, my biggest problem was a severely dented ego.

I shut the bike on and off to reset the tilt cutoff and tried to get the bike going. For some reason, it wouldn’t get up to speed, I couldn’t get it above about 10 mph. I didn’t know it until later, but that was expected behavior. The bike automatically entered a temporary “limp” mode so the system could stabilize before returning to normal operation.

I was unaware of that feature and thought the bike was broken. I rode it around the parking lot a few times to no avail. I tried to call roadside assistance, but because I was on the top of a mountain, there was no signal. Without much choice, I kept circling the parking lot until the bike came back to life. Susan hopped back on and we continued south to the bottom of the mountain pass.

I suppose I was a little bit rattled, but a bike that’s moving can’t just fall over so I was fine as we kept going. The mountain was just as beautiful on the way down as it was on the way up. We got to US 285 and headed west towards CO-9 which would take us north to Breckenridge for the evening.

I noticed a sudden drop in temperature and the thermometer on the console read 50⁰F. The sky turned gray and it started to rain. I’ve ridden through the rain hundreds of times. It is unpleasant, but it is nothing I can’t handle. Then it started to hail.

It felt like I was in the middle of a science fiction movie. I couldn’t see anything, I was freezing, and I was getting pelted in the face with hail. I badly wanted somewhere to pull over, but we were in the middle of nowhere. There was no shoulder, no cross streets, no exits, no gas stations, nowhere to safely go. Susan insisted that I stop, and with no other choice, I parked on the fog line and hoped we didn’t get flattened by a truck that didn’t see us on the road. The drop at the top of the mountain suddenly didn’t seem like much of a problem anymore.

Eventually the hail let up so we were able to start moving again. We were freezing and soaked to the bone. I found a gas station with a cafeteria, and we went inside to get out of the rain. They had the air conditioning running and it made us feel even colder. We stayed there until the rain slowed to a drizzle and we powered through to Breckenridge. I had never been so happy to park the motorcycle and call it a day!

We checked into a hotel called Gravity Haus and changed out of our wet clothes, much to our relief. I noticed my nose had some light bruising from being smacked in the face with hail at 50mph. I sat down to catch my breath and dry out.

I suppose we have an expectation that every minute of our vacations should be as perfect as we planned and nothing ever should go wrong. I consider myself to be a very experienced and confident rider. Given all that I was having a hard time shaking the notion that I struggled with the bike, and I had to get it back to Denver the next day.

I texted a few friends that ride motorcycles to confess what happened. I reached out to Andrew who was part of what inspired me to ride in the first place and told him about the struggles with the clutch and the drop. He thought the whole experience sounded cool anyway. I sent a similar text to Ralph, who is the most experienced rider I know. He also thought it sounded like a great experience, and he apparently resisted the urge to make fun of me.

I had to let it go. If this was the worst thing that happened to me in three years of following the M72 World Tour, I’d take it. I’d figure out the clutch and make it back to Denver and have an awesome time doing so.

We headed out and walked around Breckenridge. It sits in a beautiful location among the mountains. As such, the real estate listings reminded us that we were interlopers in their exclusive neighborhood.

We stopped at the Breckenridge Distillery Tasting Room for a whisky flight. We followed that up with dinner at Radicato Breckenridge Italian which exceeded my expectations. It felt surreal that just a few hours prior, we were stranded on the side of a highway being pelted with hail. It was a calming way to end the day, and I slept like a brick when we got back to the hotel.

Monday July 1, 2025

I woke up determined to make the most out of the day on the road. We grabbed a quick breakfast in town and got back on the bike. I planned a simple route, CO-9 north to US-40 east to I-70 east back to Denver. It would take us around a large mountain range and point us back towards the city.

This turned out to be one of the most breathtaking motorcycle trips I have ever been on. I was left alone with my thoughts, concentrating on maneuvering hairpin turns and steep grades while admiring the stunning scenery. I got the hang of the clutch and didn’t have any problems throughout the day. I was fully connected to the road and felt good the whole time.

There were moments when I instinctively wanted to grab my phone and take pictures of where we were. But there was no need to stop and record what I was seeing, it meant a lot more to be present in the moment.

We stopped for a quick lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Winter Park before we got back on the Interstate towards Eagle Rider to drop the bike off. The traffic got rough when we got closer to the city which really tested my newfound ability to work the clutch. I could tell that Susan was happy to be done with the bike after all that had happened.

It was time to show the bike to the receptionist at Eagle Rider. It was the same woman who sold me the walk away insurance. I didn’t mention the drop and was waiting for her to say something before I would shrug my shoulders and say, “I’m insured”.

For reasons I can’t explain, she looked right at the damage and didn’t say anything about it at all. She asked me to sign off without a word. Either she noticed it and knew it was covered so there was no need to discuss it, or she was dumb. It was no matter to me, we grabbed our stuff, hailed an Uber, and got out of there!

We had a simple dinner where we were staying at Hotel Indigo which was near Coors Field. And because “when in Rome,” we grabbed a pre-roll at The Green Solution Recreational Marijuana Dispensary down the block.

Epilogue

It was ironic that we initially moved the trip to avoid bad weather and still got stuck in a nasty hailstorm. But in the end, that was just a humorous footnote. The Colorado trip was a huge success. Metallica kicked ass and everything about the city and the mountains was amazing.

Including my home state of New Jersey, this was the ninth city that I saw Metallica play on the M72 World Tour, spanning four countries. I got to live my dream of seeing the greatest band of all time on the road. Every show was special, from the first one in Paris to the final one in Denver. I have distinct memories of each one. I also have stories and pictures of every place I visited, several of which I probably would not have visited were it not for Metallica.

This wasn’t quite the end for me, I had tickets to see Back to The Beginning in Birmingham, UK that Saturday and Metallica was going to open for Ozzy Osbourne with an abbreviated set. But it was the end of my M72 journey, and I was satisfied that it was done right. I was especially grateful for the great company I had along the way.

My M72 Would Tour Itinerary

My lifetime Metallica concert history

Link to YouTube playlist of all official Metallica concert videos I have been present for.

Metallica songs I have seen performed on the M72 World Tour

All Metallica songs I have seen performed live