Metallica × Slipknot — The Ultimate Last Ride of 2025
The lights didn’t go out all at once. They never do with bands like these.
In 2025, metal didn’t end with silence — it ended with echoes. Two titans, born in different eras but forged by the same fire, crossed the same year on separate paths. Metallica, the architects. Slipknot, the wrecking crew. One closed its chapter under a summer sky. The other dragged the year screaming into winter. Together, they made 2025 feel like the last page of a book no one wanted to finish.
Metallica reached the end first.
On June 29, 2025, in Denver, the air over Empower Field at Mile High was thin, cold, and electric. Seventy thousand voices rose as one when the familiar pulse of “Ecstasy of Gold” rolled through the stadium. This wasn’t just another stop on the M72 World Tour — it felt ceremonial. For months, Metallica had crossed North America with military precision: twin-night stadium takeovers, no-repeat setlists, massive towers of sound and steel. Cities blurred together, but Denver stood still.
James Hetfield stepped to the mic like a man who had done this a thousand times and still understood the weight of it. Lars hit the snare, Kirk’s guitar screamed, and the crowd knew — this was the last night of this run. Not the end of Metallica, not even the end of the tour globally, but the end of this chapter. When “Master of Puppets” tore through the night and fireworks crowned the final chord, it felt like a door closing softly rather than slamming shut.
Metallica left the stage as legends always do: controlled, confident, complete. Summer swallowed the sound, and the road went quiet behind them.
Slipknot didn’t believe in quiet.
While Metallica ended their year in June, Slipknot stretched 2025 until it begged for mercy. Europe first — mud, fire, and chaos across festival fields where masks stared back at thousands of faces. Then the United States, where the Knotfest Roadshow ripped through the heat of July and August like a traveling riot. Each show felt less like a concert and more like survival. Corey Taylor howled. The percussion section detonated. Crowds left changed, shaken, baptized in noise.
On September 8, 2025, in The Woodlands, Texas, the Roadshow finally collapsed into itself. Sweat-soaked and hoarse, Slipknot closed the last American night of the tour. It should have been the end.
It wasn’t.
Because Slipknot doesn’t end — it mutates.
As the year bled into fall, Knotfest banners rose again. The machine rolled south. And on December 6, 2025, in Mexico, under winter skies and festival lights, the final blow landed. Knotfest Mexico wasn’t just another date on the calendar — it was the last roar of the year, the last sanctioned eruption of Slipknot’s world. Whether the band headlined or haunted the edges, their presence was undeniable. Masks. Chaos. Communion through distortion.
December is where metal usually sleeps.
In 2025, it screamed.
And that’s why this year mattered.
Metallica and Slipknot never shared a stage for this “ultimate last tour,” but spiritually, they were locked together — the beginning and the end of the same story. Metallica represented endurance: four decades of dominance, closing a stadium season with precision and grace. Slipknot embodied entropy: relentless, uncontained, refusing to let the year die quietly.
One band said goodbye in daylight. The other said goodnight in fire.
Fans will argue about which ending meant more. The Denver farewell, polished and powerful. Or the Mexico finale, raw and feral. But the truth is simpler: metal didn’t fade out in 2025. It burned from June to December, from stadium lights to festival flames.
If this was the “ultimate last ride,” it wasn’t about finality. It was about legacy.
Metallica showed us how to finish a chapter. Slipknot showed us how to tear the last page out.
And somewhere between those two moments — between June 29 and December 6 — metal reminded the world why it refuses to die.
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