METALLICA celebrated its 30th anniversary as a band last week, performing four shows at the Fillmore Theatre in San Francisco, CA, exclusively for members of their fan club, the Metallica Club.

In August, Metallica Club members around the world were able to enter a lottery for a chance to purchase tickets to all the Fillmore shows at a cost of $19.81 for a four-pack of tickets to all of the shows. Single show tickets were $6. All four of the shows immediately sold out.

Photo by Steffan Chirazi courtesy of Metallica.com

Last week, Metallica welcomed these fans from around the globe to join them in the celebration where there were no repeats in the set lists for the four night stand, aside from the established show closer of 'Seek And Destroy', playing close to 80 different songs. Each night at the Fillmore was hosted by comedian Jim Breuer and opened by the Rebel Souls Brass Band performing Metallica songs. This was followed by fan club winners invited on stage to play "Crash Course Trivia" and "Name That Riff" games where they were able to win exclusive 30th anniversary prizes and memorabilia.

Metallica also invited many special guests relevant to their 30 years to the stage to perform with them. The list of guests included: APOCALYPTICA, ARMORED SAINT, GEEZER BUTLER, JOHN BUSH, BIF BYFORD, JERRY CANTRELL, NICK "ANIMAL" CULMER, GLENN DANZIG, DEATH ANGEL, KING DIAMOND, DIAMOND HEAD, MARIANNE FAITHFULL, LLOYD GRANT, ROB HALFORD, RAY HALLER, PEPPER KEENAN, KID ROCK, LAAZ ROCKIT, JOHN MARSHALL, JIM MARTIN, MERCYFUL FATE, RON MCGOVNEY, DAVE MUSTAINE, JASON NEWSTED, OZZY OSBOURNE, REBEL SOULS BRASS BAND, LOU REED, BOB ROCK, GARY ROSSINGTON, and HUGH TANNER. Each night the finale featured all the evening's guests joining the band on stage to perform 'Seek And Destroy'.

This week, Metallica will release the Beyond Magnetic EP featuring four previously unreleased songs, which will be available exclusively on iTunes in North America for one week. After that week, the songs will be available from digital retailers. Around the world, it will be available on iTunes and other digital retailers. These four songs were originally released as a gift to Metallica's Metallica Club members to enjoy immediately after the band played them.

"During the Death Magnetic album sessions in 2007 and 2008, we originally recorded 14 songs. When it came time to pick the songs for the final album, we decided on 10 songs that you've all come to know over the last three years," said the members of Metallica. "Some of you may have heard bits and pieces of those other songs on 'Mission Metallica' (remember 'Mission Metallica'?!) or heard rumors about them during the recording process, and wondered, 'What ever happened to those other four songs???.' We kept them in the vault and decided to pull them just for this special celebration, so here are the four leftover tracks from the Death Magnetic sessions. They are ROUGH mixes, unfinished to their original degree of mixing from March '08. These four songs were released as gift to our closest fans, the members of our Fan Club, to enjoy. Now they're being made available to you."

Beyond Magnetic Tracklisting:

'Hate Train'

'Just A Bullet Away'

'Hell And Back'

'Rebel Of Babylon'

Metallica's 30th anniversary celebration ended late Saturday night with drummer Lars Ulrich telling fans to listen for news to come in mid-January 2012 about something very special coming in June.

The sign depicted below was posted at the entrance to The Fillmore during all four anniversary shows, which leads one to believe a live CD and/or DVD is in the works: