Metallica announced last night that they will be performing four shows in San Francisco this coming December to celebrate their 30^th anniversary. The four shows, however, are “exclusive” to members of Metallica’s fan club, the Met Club.

The band posted the following explanation on their website:

“Thirty years of Metallica… can you believe it? We think it’s cause for a major celebration! You’ve been asking for a while now ‘just what the hell are you going to do to mark 30 years as a band?’ closely followed by ‘why don’t we have more exclusive shows for Fan Club members?’ We’ve heard you loud and clear and are beyond psyched to announce that the week of December 5, 2011 will be a full on Metallica week in the Bay Area, more specifically we will be playing four shows for Met Club members only at the historic Fillmore in San Francisco on December 5, 7, 9, and 10 to celebrate our 30^th anniversary. These unique shows will include special guests and events, rare songs, varied set lists, odds and ends, and all the nutty stuff you expect from Metallica… fun for the entire family! Come to the Bay Area and spend the week with us to not only close out 2011 out with a bang, but to celebrate over three decades worth of craziness.

Participate in the entire week of festivities with special four pack tickets (one ticket for each of the four shows) and automatic entry into the contests for various other special events, available for the clever price of $19.81 (get it??). If you can’t join us for the full week, we’ll have individual show tickets too and as you can see we’re going back to early ’80′s ticket pricing (but not the hair!)… single show tickets will be just $6.00 each. Both four packs and individual show tickets will be available for Fan Club members only through a reservation system and we do have to add facility fees, blah, blah. Clubbers can log in for all the details… we’re taking reservations through August 8.

Hope to see you for a week of madness in December!”

While a membership to the Met Club can cost you anywhere from $45 to $60, you really can’t beat this deal. Six bucks to see Metallica performing at the Filmore in San Francisco?! Granted, there’s probably going to be a nice “convenient charge” added onto that and tickets will probably be very hard to come by even if you are a member. However, if we were a little closer to the West Coast, we’d make a major effort to try and get to at least one of these shows. It really does sound like the ultimate event for die hard Metallica fans.