Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland dressed up as Metallica’s James Hetfield onstage last week.
The nu metal frontrunners wrapped up their run of shows supporting San Francisco’s thrash giants with a stop at Empower Field in Denver, Colorado on Friday (June 27). During their slot, Borland paid tribute by dressing up in a vintage Metal Up Your Ass t-shirt as well as a curly blond wig, ripped blue jeans and a skull mask.
The get-up bore striking resemblance to how Hetfield looked at the start of Metallica’s career. The band’s 1983 debut album, Kill ’Em All, was originally set to be called Metal Up Your Ass before record label intervention.
For the set, Borland also played a Jackson guitar shaped similarly to a Gibson Explorer, with a label that read ‘EET PHO’. The Explorer has been a favourite model of Hetfield’s over the years, and during the touring cycle for 1988 album …And Justice For All, he played one with ‘EET FUK’ written on it.
The ‘EET FUK’ guitar, immortalised in Metallica’s vaunted concert video Live Shit: Binge And Purge, has been retired from live usage for some time and is now safely stored at the band’s HQ in San Rafael, California.
Borland’s cosplay isn’t the first time Limp Bizkit have bowed before Metallica. In 2003, singer Fred Durst and company covered 1986 track Welcome Home (Sanitarium) for an episode of MTV Icon dedicated to the California band. Sum 41, Snoop Dogg, Avril Lavigne, Korn, members of Staind, and Metallica themselves also performed on the programme.
Now that their run with Metallica has ended, Limp Bizkit are focussing on the festival summer. They will play the Reading and Leeds festivals in the UK in August, as well as dates in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and Istanbul, Turkey. Frontman Fred Durst will perform at Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell show in Birmingham, UK on Saturday (July 5).
As for Metallica, the band will also be at Osbourne’s swansong. They’ll then tour Australia in November and play two shows in the Middle East in December, before coming back to Europe in summer 2026.
