Metallica Donate £20,000 to Cardiff Foodbank Through All Within My Hands Foundation

The gift, described as the foodbank's largest celebrity donation, came after the organization publicly appealed for help due to empty warehouse shelves.

Metallica donated £20,000 to Cardiff Foodbank on June 28 following their sell-out M72 World Tour date in the Welsh capital. The contribution, channeled through the band's All Within My Hands foundation, came after the foodbank had publicly appealed for donations on social media, warning that their warehouse shelves had never been so empty. Cardiff Foodbank CEO Rachel Biggs confirmed the gift to the BBC, calling it the organization's largest celebrity donation.

Cardiff Foodbank CEO Describes the Donation

Biggs told the BBC that the initial contact from the foundation caught the organization off guard. “We had an email saying ‘This isn't a scam, please get in touch with the foundation,'” she said. “They said, ‘We are going to donate £20,000 to you.'”

The timing was significant. Cardiff Foodbank had recently gone public on social media saying they were “very worried” because they had never seen their warehouse so empty. Biggs welcomed the windfall directly: “It's an incredible amount of money which will make such a difference and replenish our empty shelves.”

Cardiff Foodbank supports 20,000 people a year across eight centres in the city, along with a mobile service that delivers pre-packaged bags. The organization noted that beyond the financial impact, the donation carries a visibility benefit: “What's great for us [is] it helps raise the profile and what Metallica are doing is mobilising their fans, mobilising the local community.”

Metallica Join Taylor Swift as Major Celebrity Donors

Metallica now join Taylor Swift in supporting Cardiff Foodbank. Swift made her own donation in 2024 following her Eras Tour stop at the Principality Stadium. The foodbank described Metallica's contribution as their largest celebrity donation to date, a distinction that underscores the scale of the All Within My Hands foundation's commitment.

All Within My Hands was established by Metallica to support workforce education, the fight against hunger, and other critical local services. The Cardiff donation fits squarely within that mission, and it follows a broader pattern of charitable activity on the current UK leg of the M72 tour. The band also became the first metal group to collaborate with UK blood services, urging fans to donate blood and plasma around their UK tour dates.

M72 World Tour: UK and European Context

The Cardiff date was part of Metallica's ongoing M72 World Tour, launched in 2023 in support of their 11th studio album, 72 Seasons. Before hitting Cardiff on June 28, the band played Dublin and Glasgow, where they covered The Proclaimers' “I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)” and The Pogues' “Dirty Old Town.”

The Dublin run was not without incident. At the first Dublin show on June 19, guitarist Kirk Hammett lost his footing near the edge of the stage during “Seek & Destroy” and fell, before being helped back up and finishing the song. Hammett later addressed the moment on Instagram with characteristic humor, captioning a clip of the fall: “Slip & Destroy.”

Hammett had also drawn attention earlier in the tour after appearing at a June 13 show in Budapest wearing a T-shirt reading “Taylor Swift Is A CIA Psyop,” which generated criticism from Swift's fanbase. He appeared to address the broader controversy in a subsequent interview, taking aim at the current state of popular music: “Right now, songwriting and pop music is crap.” He elaborated: “I'm hoping that all these great musicians who can teach themselves through the internet step up and put all that great learning and all that great inspiration into creating new stuff, new songs, the future of music, and at a higher standard than what it is now. Because I'll say it again, K-R-A-P. Crap. Sorry for all you pop fans out there.”

Remaining UK Tour Dates

Metallica's remaining UK dates on the M72 World Tour are:

• July 3 — London Stadium, London
• July 5 — London Stadium, London

What we know

• Metallica donated £20,000 to Cardiff Foodbank through their All Within My Hands foundation after their June 28 M72 World Tour date in Cardiff.
• Cardiff Foodbank CEO Rachel Biggs confirmed the donation to the BBC, describing it as the organization's largest celebrity donation.
• Cardiff Foodbank had appealed for donations on social media prior to the gift, stating they were “very worried” because their warehouse had never been so empty.
• Cardiff Foodbank supports 20,000 people a year and operates eight centres across the city plus a mobile delivery service.
• Taylor Swift also donated to Cardiff Foodbank in 2024 following her Eras Tour stop at the Principality Stadium.
• Metallica became the first metal group to collaborate with UK blood services as part of a charitable effort tied to their UK tour dates.
• Kirk Hammett fell from the stage during “Seek & Destroy” at the first Dublin show on June 19, was helped back up, and continued the song.
• Hammett later captioned an Instagram clip of the fall “Slip & Destroy.”

The take

Metallica's All Within My Hands foundation has been one of the more substantive charitable operations in rock for years, consistently directing funds toward food banks and workforce education rather than functioning as a passive vanity vehicle. The Cardiff donation fits that established pattern, but the timing and the public visibility around it are notable. When a food bank is actively posting distress signals on social media and a band responds with a five-figure gift within weeks, the optics are genuinely good rather than manufactured. The foundation's framing around community mobilization, encouraging fans to engage locally, reflects a model that legacy rock acts have increasingly adopted as a way to maintain cultural relevance beyond the catalog. The comparison to Taylor Swift's 2024 donation is interesting from an industry perspective: two of the biggest touring acts in the world, from opposite ends of the genre spectrum, both choosing the same Cardiff organization as a beneficiary. That says something about how major touring productions now routinely build local charitable engagement into their footprint, partly out of genuine goodwill and partly because it deepens the bond between an artist and a city in ways that streaming numbers simply cannot replicate. For Metallica specifically, whose fanbase skews toward communities that have historically felt the economic pressures food banks address, this kind of direct local action carries real weight.

Why it matters

For Classic Rock fans, Metallica's Cardiff donation is a reminder that the All Within My Hands foundation operates with genuine intent and meaningful scale. A £20,000 gift to a food bank running on empty shelves is a concrete intervention, not a photo opportunity. It also reinforces a growing expectation in the live music industry: that stadium-level tours carry a responsibility to leave something tangible behind in the cities they pass through. Cardiff Foodbank's point about fan mobilization is the larger takeaway; the donation amplifies awareness well beyond the check itself.

What's next

Metallica have two remaining UK dates on the M72 World Tour, both at London Stadium on July 3 and July 5. Those shows will close out the UK portion of the European leg before the band continues across the continent.

Frequently asked questions