| Tour by Metallica | |
| Associated album | Metallica |
|---|---|
| Start date | August 1, 1991 |
| End date | December 18, 1992 |
| No. of shows | 224 |
| Metallica concert chronology | |
Wherever We May Roam (mentioned by band members in interviews as Wherever I May Roam) was a concert tour by the American heavy metal band Metallica in support of their eponymous fifth studio album (commonly known as The Black Album). It began in autumn of 1991. The North American legs ran through summer 1992, followed by the Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour, the Wherever We May Roam European leg, and finally the Nowhere Else to Roam tour of smaller markets in North America, Mexico, Asia, Australia, South America, Europe and Israel, ending in the summer of 1993.
These initial North American shows took place in arenas, with multiple dates in largely populated areas not uncommon. The band was at a commercial peak, following the release of their fifth and most commercially successful album Metallica and its breakthrough hit "Enter Sandman". The leg of the tour overlapped with the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, at which Metallica performed a short set.
The 1991 European leg was part of the Monsters of Rock festival. The last concert of that leg, held on September 28, 1991, at Tushino Airfield in Moscow, was described as "the first free outdoor Western rock concert in Soviet history" and had a crowd estimated between 150,000 and 500,000 people,[1][2] with some unofficial estimates as high as 1,600,000.[3] On the North American leg, the January 13 and 14, 1992, shows in San Diego were later released in the box set Live Shit: Binge & Purge,[4] while the tour and the album were later documented in A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica.[5]
During the Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour, Hetfield suffered second and third degree burns to his arms, face, hands, and legs during a live performance of the introduction of "Fade to Black".[4]