They don’t call Manchester the Rainy City for nothing. With no cover over Metallica’s stage, water pours off the Californian metal veterans’ instruments and singer James Hetfield’s sodden grey hair looks pasted to his head. It makes for quite a spectacle, especially when ominous black clouds on the video screens match those in the skies above. Although the band are presumably well rewarded for enduring a thorough saturation, after 38 years and various lineups they are obviously revelling in what Hetfield calls “the best job in the world”.

The intense, gravel-voiced rocker thanks fans for sticking with them “for a million years” and instructing them to consider their recent record Hardwired… to Self-Destruct “your favourite album of all time – just for tonight, right?” The black-clad, generation-spanning faithful are rewarded with a two-and-a-half hour metal masterclass, with career landmarks going back to Seek and Destroy from 1983’s thrash metal benchmark Kill ’Em All. There are brutally heavy rockers about death and desolation along with gently anthemic songs about, well, death and desolation.

“This one – surprisingly enough – is about addiction,” says Hetfield, drily acknowledging another recurring theme. Drug abuse also inspires the classic Master of Puppets, a nine-minute marathon that brings hardcore punk energy to metal – it features Hetfield demonically cackling and the crowd chanting the jabbing “Obey your master!” hookline.

There are pyrotechnics, fireworks and even a dip into I Wanna Be Adored by local heroes the Stone Roses. By now, drummer Lars Ulrich is grinning maniacally as showers of water fly upwards each time he hits the snare drum. An eerie fog descends for a hymnal Nothing Else Matters and the rain suddenly stops during the last chorus of an epic, cathartic, stadium-sized singalong Enter Sandman, as if the heavy weather is all part of the show.

• At Twickenham Stadium, London, on 20 June.