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Obscure footage of Metallica playing Reload single The Memory Remains on British TV with Marianne Faithfull has been unearthed after 29 years.
The team behind prime-time TV show TFI Friday, originally broadcast on the UK’s Channel 4 from 1996 to 2000, rummaged through their archive and uploaded the video to YouTube on Tuesday (June 9).
It depicts the San Francisco foursome – James Hetfield (vocals/guitars), Kirk Hammett (guitars), Lars Ulrich (drums) and then-bassist Jason Newsted – performing the track on November 14, 1997, with backing vocals from Faithfull. The English rock/folk singer-songwriter sang on the studio recording but seldom joined the band onstage before dying in January 2025, aged 78.
Before this official, high-definition upload, the video was a rare piece of Metalli-history. A handful of grainy clips made their way onto YouTube, but with the most popular having only 29,000 views. Channel 4 says the footage is part of their “newly rediscovered archive of classic British TV”.
TFI Friday, hosted by famed radio DJ and future Top Gear presenter Chris Evans, featured many famous live acts during its run. These included plenty of Britpop bands – such as Oasis, Blur and Pulp – plus others including the Spice Girls, the Manic Street Preachers, Kylie Minogue and Foo Fighters.
After its cancellation, the programme was briefly revived in late 2015. In early 2026, it was repackaged as a radio show, again hosted by Evans, and broadcast via Virgin Radio.
The official upload of this The Memory Remains performance comes at an opportune time for Metallica, who are gearing up to reissue Reload on June 26 via their Blackened Recordings label.
The reissue will come in a variety of different boxsets. All of them feature a remastered version of the quadruple-Platinum-selling album, handled by Reuben Cohen and Greg Fidelman at Lurssen Mastering.
The most extensive package, the Reload Remastered Limited Edition Deluxe Box Set, comes with the remastered Reload album on double vinyl, as well as the seven-inch vinyl single The Memory Remains and the triple-vinyl live album Live At Ministry Of Sound ’97. It also comes with 15 CDs – including the Reload remaster and collections of demos, live recordings, rough mixes and other rarities – and four DVDs of behind-the-scenes, live performance and studio rehearsal footage.
Metallica call this deluxe release “a passionately and thoroughly curated document of 1997-1998 era Metallica, bursting with exclusives including previously unreleased demos, rough mixes, live performances, on-air and television appearances, and much more”.
Other 2LP, CD, cassette and 3CD formats options are also available. Head to the Metallica website to scour the range and pre-order.
The Reload reissue will come out almost exactly a year after Metallica similarly remastered and re-released their 1996 album, Load. The two albums were recorded simultaneously from May 1995 to April ’96 at The Plant at Sausalito, California, produced by Bob Rock.
The Load/Reload era was a controversial one for Metallica. The albums saw the band move away from their iron-clad metal sound and embrace more blues and country influence, irritating a portion of their fanbase. The members also shed their metal image by cutting their hair and doing promotional photoshoots with Anton Corbijn, best known for his work with Depeche Mode and U2.
Kirk Hammett reflected on the controversy during a 2025 interview with Rolling Stone and said that fans have come to appreciate the material.
“But when those albums first came out, it was like, ‘Fuck Load,’” he remembered. “‘Fuck Reload, fuck Metallica.’ But nowadays we play [Reload opener] Fuel and people go nuts. We play [Load’s lead single] Until It Sleeps and people fucking know every fucking word.”
Metallica, who have since re-embraced heavy metal and put out their latest album 72 Seasons in 2023, are currently touring Europe. They’ll perform at Puskas Aréna in Budapest, Hungary, on June 11 and 13. Gojira, Pantera, Knocked Loose and Avatar are supporting.
