Metallica cover Ozzy, Deep Purple, The Beatles and Rare Earth on live acoustic EP

Metallica have released a new live EP, recorded during the band’s performance at the MusiCares MAP Fund Benefit Concert at Club Nokia in Los Angeles on May 12, 2014.

The acoustic concert paid tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, and saw the band play four cover songs, all of which feature on the EP. They include Ozzy’s Diary of a Madman, Rare Earth’s I Just Want to Celebrate, The Beatles’ In My Life – which Ozzy also covered on his 2005 album Under Cover – and Deep Purple’s When a Blind Man Cries.

You can watch a live video of the band’s performance of Diary of a Madman below, or head to LiveMetallica.com to listen to the full EP.

Deep Purple’s When a Blind Man Cries has since been featured on several Metallica releases. The band performed the track at the 2016 Bridge School Benefit and their 2018 All Within My Hands benefit concert. A studio-recorded version of the song features on the group’s latest album, Hardwired… to Self-Destruct (2016).

While we’re still waiting on the next Metallica album, the thrash titans have been hard at work on other projects. Earlier this month, the four-piece partnered with online guitar learning platform Yousician to teach fans how to play Enter Sandman, Nothing Else Matters, One, and the “real way” to play Master of Puppets.

Metallica’s current tour, which is due to stop in Belgium for the Rock Werchter festival on July 1, has delivered memorable moments, including lead guitarist Kirk Hammett flubbing the intro to Nothing Else Matters, before falling on the floor at Boston Calling.

And on a more serious note, James Hetfield became emotional onstage back in May in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, telling the crowd he felt like an “old guy” and that he was worried he couldn’t play guitar anymore.

This prompted his bandmates – Hammett, bassist Rob Trujillo and drummer Lars Ulrich – to leave their onstage posts and give the rhythm guitar legend a group hug. Hetfield followed by addressing the audience, saying: “Seeing you out there, I am not alone. I am not alone, and neither are you.”

The EP is available on CD or as a digital download, priced from $3.99 for MP3 to $5.99 for HD-audio. Proceeds from downloads will go to the MusiCares MAP Fund.