Metallica Fan Road Trips With Stranger To Make it To Sydney Gig After Flight Cancellation

Two strangers have ended up road tripping together after their flights to Sydney for the Metallica gig were cancelled, and replacements wouldn’t get them there in time.

In a prime example of how music brings people together, two strangers heading to Metallica’s final Sydney show from Brisbane have ended up on a road trip to get to Accor Stadium on time after their original flights were cancelled.

Posted to the Metallica M72 World Tour Facebook group, Ian James Knight shared his story of serendipitously running into a fellow stranded Metallica fan on a replacement flight that got him almost all of the way to the gig – and how they ended up road tripping together to get the rest of the way on time.

While queuing at bag drop at Brisbane Airport, Knight received a message that his original flight to Sydney had been cancelled. While he was offered replacement flights that would get him to his destination, a stopover in Canberra meant that he’d miss out on Metallica’s gig – and other last-minute flights were going for over a grand.

A staff member offered him a flight to Newcastle – over two hours drive from Sydney still. However, on that replacement flight, coincidentally he ran into another fan. Bella had also had her flight to get to the gig cancelled – a completely different one to Knight’s, but they both ended up on the same replacement.

“On the flight I spot a Metallica shirt,” his post reads. “We toy with the idea of sharing an Uber to the train station, we settle on renting a car.” Knight noted that he’d had a medical procedure the day prior, so was unable to drive, so Bella got behind the wheel. “We make it to Sydney before the train leaves Newcastle and I make early entry, Bella makes it to a birthday party (then the gig).”

Wrapping up his interstate ordeal, Knight describes it as such: “JFC, what a day.”

Knight described the night (after the travel ordeal was over) as “another epic gig,” and noted he was heading to Auckland tomorrow to catch Metallica one last time and was “hoping for an easier time of it.”