‘I met my wife at a Metallica show – we’ve seen them 35 times around the world and will go to metal gigs into our 70s’
A pair of metalheads who fell in love after meeting at a Metallica concert have been to more than 200 gigs together since the start of their moshpit romance and have watched Metallica perform 35 times together.
Jack Butcher, 37, who works in data, and Emma Torres, 37, a freelance vision mixer, were at a Metallica show in Prague in 2019 when they locked eyes during the band’s 1986 hit, Master Of Puppets.
From that moment, their romance blossomed, and Jack and Emma married two years later before heading off to the Louder Than Life rock festival in Kentucky for their honeymoon – where, naturally, Metallica were headliners.
Since they met, they have been to 35 Metallica shows and have a further 11 booked – including an extra special gig at the Las Vegas Sphere, where the band will host a residency from October 2026 – and have travelled around the world to catch their favourite rock and metal bands.
“Looking for the next gig is happening all the time – just as soon as we hear an artist we like is playing, we will book it,” Jack, who lives in London with Emma, told PA Real Life.
“Our highlights since early 2025 are that we have been to see Metallica in Toronto, Nashville, Columbus (Ohio), Athens and Berlin.
“We attended Ozzy Osbourne’s final show – the Back To The Beginning event at Aston Villa – which Metallica also played. Back to the Beginning was very special as a one-off show with an exceptional line-up. Athens was very special too – it was the first time Metallica had played there in 16 years.”
“I feel like our lives are just one never-ending conversation about music,” he added. “Music is a huge part of our lives. There is always something playing in the background – or foreground – while we are at home, and we are always looking for our next artist to discover.”
Jack and Emma first met in the pit at Metallica’s show in Prague in 2019, while the band were performing their 1986 hit Master Of Puppets. At this point, Jack had seen them play about 30 times, while Emma had seen them twice – but they have both been rock and metal fans since their teens.
They each attended their first gigs in 2002 – Jack saw System of a Down in Nottingham, while Emma, who grew up in Mexico, saw Garbage in Mexico City.
As Metallica’s Prague show went on, the crowd got “pretty wild” and when the band played Master Of Puppets, Emma and Jack locked eyes and “rocked out” together.
“We were singing along and I was thinking, ‘he’s cute’,” Emma said.
This interaction lasted only a moment as the crowd was constantly moving, and by the time the show ended about 20 minutes later, Jack had lost his friends.
While looking for them, he noticed Emma standing on her own and made his way over to her. After discovering they both lived near London, Jack asked for her number.
“He was asking me how many times I’d seen Metallica, and I was impressed that he had seen them so many times,” Emma recalled.
A few weeks later, the pair met up, soon began dating, and quickly realised their connection went beyond just a concert experience.
They tied the knot in 2021 but decided not to have anything metal-related on their big day.
Instead, they made their trip to the Louder Than Life rock festival for their honeymoon.
Since then, Jack said, “I’d estimate we have been to 200 (gigs) together since we met in 2019… from small shows up to huge festivals” – so much so that “there are no more dream gigs to tick off the list of bands that are still going, but there would be plenty who no longer play that we would have loved to have seen”.
Over the years, they’ve collected hundreds of pieces of memorabilia and merchandise, though they are looking forward to moving to a larger home so they can put it all on display.
“We have hundreds of tour date T-shirts, hundreds of old ticket stubs from shows, though paper tickets are more a thing of the past now, (and) we have lots of items that the band or roadies have thrown into the crowd – like guitar plectrums and setlists,” Jack said.
“We have lots of tour date and festival posters, and lots of autographed items. Emma once caught a drumstick from the band Mastodon, and I caught a drumstick from Iron Maiden at Reading Festival in 2005.
“However, it is all boxed away and not on display. When we move home we plan to unbox it all and display it.”
This summer, the couple are looking forward to heading to Donington Park for the huge rock festival, Download, which runs from June 10 to 14 and will see headline shows from Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Guns N’ Roses.
“I went to the first one in 2003, so it is always special to go back to it,” Jack said of Download Festival.
As for Metallica, they have 11 more shows booked which will bring their running total up to 46 Metallica gigs, and are looking forward to hearing their love song Master of Puppets time and time again.
“Having now seen them so many times, it’s the atmosphere that really keeps me coming back,” Jack explained.
“The opportunity to experience Metallica in a different city, in a different venue, in a different country, just makes it like a new experience every time.”
“Hearing Master of Puppets live is very special since we met while that song was playing… it is always a huge moment in their set anyway, and already brings some of the show’s best live moments,” he added.
“On this tour they have been playing it as the final song or very near the end of the set, and it works great in that position. Of course, for us it brings back special memories, so the song has a unique meaning to us too.”
While they have been less inclined to get in the pit as they’ve got older, with Jack explaining, “we are more content to stand at the back of the show rather than head to the front”, they maintain that “there is nothing else like” live music.
He said: “I absolutely think we will keep doing this as long as we can – and I would certainly hope that takes us into our 60s and 70s.”
