SAN FRANCISCO — Metallica sure knows how to throw a birthday party.

Tickets to the band’s two 40th anniversary concerts were offered to members of their fan club. At the first of those on Friday night, Metallica absolutely played the show for those fans. The set list was a career retrospective, with at least one song from each of their albums, and rather than sticking to the mainstream hits, they chose deep cuts and fan favorites to truly celebrate their history.

Before the show, the band came on stage in street clothes to welcome everyone.

“We’ve done our best to make this a very special event for everyone, including us,” singer James Hetfield said.

Then drummer Lars Ulrich told the crowd, “We are gonna go and put our hot stage outfield on, we’re gonna stretch, we’re gonna get our protein drinks and Geritol and we’ll be back in about an hour.”

He then left the show to comedian Dean Delray and DJ Lord of Public Enemy. It was a good DJ set from a very talented man, but it was also not the audience for it.

Delray did spend time asking where some of the fans in attendance had come from. Fans closest to the stage traveled from as near as Vallejo to as far as Northern Ireland to Ecuador to the Netherlands to Argentina. Flags hung from the upper deck from France, Germany and Poland. It really drove home how global Metallica’s fans are and how far they were willing to travel to see the landmark anniversary show.

When Metallica came on stage to play, they were preceded by the traditional “Ecstasy of Gold,” but this time with narration about the band from actor Jason Momoa, before kicking off the show with “Hit the Lights” from their debut album Kill ‘Em All. It was an appropriate choice, being the first song they ever recorded as a band for the compilation album Metal Massacre, and the thrash metal energy got the show going full speed right from the first note, accentuated by the lights and the light-up wristbands provided to the audience.

From there, they moved on to “Trapped Under Ice” from their second album, 1984’s Ride the Lightning. While a fan favorite, it was the first song of the set that’s rarely played live, foreshadowing what was to come.

After a video tribute to the band’s former members, bassists Jason Newstead and the late Cliff Burton, the selection from 1986’s Master of Puppets was the instrumental song “Orion.” That led into “The Shortest Straw” from 1988’s …And Justice For All.

For the first time in the show, they played a second song off the same album because it’s not a proper Metallica concert unless they play “One,” widely regarded as their best live song and certainly with the best pyrotechnics. The crowd’s wristbands were used to great effect in the introduction sequence, rippling shock waves from the bomb blasts.

Moving on to 1991’s eponymous Metallica, more commonly known as the Black Album for its black-on-black cover, Metallica played “Sad But True,” the album’s fifth single, and “Nothing Else Matters,” its third. While neither were hits nor deep cuts, they were great selections for the flow of the show, with the heaviness of “Sad But True” providing an excellent bridge between the tragic anger of “One” and the beautiful musicality of “Nothing Else Matters.”

After “King Nothing” from 1996’s Load was by far the deepest cut of the show, “Fixxxer” from 1997’s Reload. As Hetfield pointed out, it was the first time “Fixxxer” was ever played live. It should stay in their rotation; it makes an excellent live song and can stand with staples “Nothing Else Matters” and “The Unforgiven” as breaks to let the mosh pit rest a bit.

When Hetfield finished marveling that after 40 years they were still making first, he said, “There’s something I’ve gotta tell you, man… BREADFAN!” and immediately dove into the riff of “Breadfan,” from 1998’s Garage Inc. Technically, that’s not the original release; it first appeared as the B-side of “Harvester of Sorrow” in 1988. But Garage Inc. was its first album appearance, and it’s a fantastic song, so the audience didn’t seem too disturbed.

A recorded symphonic intro preceded “No Leaf Clover,” one of two original songs from 1999’s live album S&M with the San Francisco Symphony. It wasn’t the first time the song was played at the Chase Center; it was also included in the S&M2 concert to open the arena in 2019.

“I actually saw a St. Anger shirt out there,” Hetfield said before the next song. “This one’s for you; we’re on to St. Anger.” Though the album wasn’t well-received on its release in 2003, the selection for the show, “Frantic,” was one of the more well-liked songs, and it does sound better than the album version with a proper, unaltered drum kit.

Jumping to 2008’s Death Magnetic, “The Day That Never Comes” was accompanied by home movies of the band’s early days on the screens over the stage. They included the band scuba diving, messing with each other on a tour bus, getting dressed in a hotel room and posing in front of Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, among other scenes.

Finally, they reached their most recent album, 2016’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, represented by “Spit Out the Bone,” to close out the show.

With little chatter and no breaks, the concert was a breakneck trip through the band’s 40-year history, with a focus on fan favorites. And the fans in attendance were clearly appreciative, singing along to every word of even the most obscure songs. Not only was it a fantastic show, it was a triumph as a tribute to an all-time great band and its dedicated fans.

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis at Twitter.com/BayAreaData. Follow photographer Steve Carlson at Instagram.com/SteveCarlsonSF and Twitter.com/SteveCarlsonSF.