Jack Black and Céline Dion Had the Best Time in the Crowd at Metallica’s Las Vegas Show
There’s a moment in the fan footage from Metallica’s Las Vegas show when you realize the person playing air bass beside Jack Black is Céline Dion. You may have to watch the clip twice to catch her hands. Black is already giving the song everything he has, and it takes a second to see that she has found a groove of her own.
The clip came from the November 7 concert at Sphere, the last of Metallica’s 2026 dates at the venue. “Blackened” opened the evening. The pair were watching from the audience, with Black and Dion visible in the same row from the fan’s vantage point.
Black’s taste for the music makes the clip feel almost like a candid scene from one of his projects. Dion is the more unexpected part of the frame, especially if the first song you associate with her is a ballad. In the video, she seems quite happy to give the singer’s role to James Hetfield and play along with the rhythm.
She had already gone to the November 5 show. A separate video from that night also caught her playing air bass, so the Saturday clip came with a little history. Two nights at Sphere gave her two different sets to hear, and gave fans two chances to spot her in the audience.
The band’s setlist for November 7 stretches from “Blackened” to “Enter Sandman” and ends later with “Master of Puppets.” The crowd footage covers just a few of those moments, but you can see the change in the room as the first riff gives way, in the later clip, to one of the band’s biggest singalongs.
The opening footage is short enough that the best way to take it in is to watch each person in turn. Start with Black and then look over to Dion. Each has found a different way into the same piece of music.
Another angle from the audience
“Enter Sandman” brought a bigger reaction later in the evening. Dion raised her arms and Black sang along, with the two visible again in footage from the audience. The later angle is worth seeing for the change in energy from the earlier air-bass moment.
Afterward, Dion shared backstage photographs with the band. The visit made for a memorable photo, but the handheld concert clips capture the part a posed shot can’t show: the split second when a familiar song comes on and everybody in the row seems to move at once.
Metallica called the Sphere run Life Burns Faster. Its paired nights used different setlists, giving return visitors a reason to come back for the second show. That format mattered here in a small way. Without two nights on Dion’s calendar, we might never have had the chance to see her pick up that imaginary bass again.
