Metallica Set Off Richter Scale After Playing Hokies Game Day Hype Song at Virginia Tech Stadium For First Time

It’s one thing for the Virginia Tech Hokies to blast Metallica‘s “Enter Sandman” as the football team’s game-day hype song when they take the field at Lane Stadium for home games. It’s quite another thing for the band to play the song on the team’s home field for the first time in front of a sold-out crowd primed to set things off.

In fact, on Wednesday night (May 7) during Metallica’s first-ever appearance at Lane Stadium on their M72 world tour, Hokie fans got so hyped that the Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory said the jumping up and down set off the Richter scale. For the past 25 years, the team’s entrance soundtrack has become legendary in college sports, a moment of collective joy when 60,000 fans jump up and down to the metal anthem to welcome their team onto the field.

In fact, according to Hokie Sports, Wednesday night was not even the first time a seismograph was set off thanks to the reaction to the lead single from Metallica’s 1991 self-titled fifth album, which topped out at Nov. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100. Back in 2011, in a game against ACC rival Miami (FL), a seismograph detected seismic activity when the team entered the stadium, then again in 2015 during a game against Ohio State and one more time in 2021 during their home opener against North Carolina.

Though playing the song has long been a tradition, one fan told ABC 13 News that watching the band open with a snippet of the instrumental intro — while flashing the team’s logo on the big screen — and then close out the show with the anthem was something else entirely. “The fact that we’re here, Metallica is playing ‘Enter Sandman’ – they started with it; this stadium’s been asking for it, we all need it,” VT junior Wesley Metcalf said. “We’re getting it; it’s a great night tonight, and I can’t believe it’s happening.” VT junior Luke Dalton added, “Experiencing that live; the actual band playing it rather than the games because we already get hyped from the games themselves, but hearing Metallica playing in the stadium live, it’s awesome, man.”

The band got all into it as well, meeting up with VT football coach Brent Pry before the show, where he presented them with No. 25 Hokies jerseys and a No. 72 jersey commemorating their ongoing M72 world tour. The tour marches on Friday night (May 9) when Metallica play the first of two takeover events at the Sonic Temple Festival in Columbus, OH.

Check out images of the Richter Scale measurement during the song below.