Metallica released Reload in 1997 and somehow never got around to playing "The Unforgiven II" until May 29 at Rock im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The crowd seems to have appreciated the change up in the setlist and the band is clearly enjoying themselves, so why not? I always thought Metallica needed to dive into its back catalogue a little more anyway and stop playing the same songs at every damn show anyway.
The band have released official audio from the performance on their Soundcloud page:
Update: Turns out they played the song once before, a reaaaallly long time ago at an award show (video below.) Technically, this is the first time this was played at a full-on concert, but… semantics!
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxly3xq7nWE[/youtube]