It’s best not to believe everything you read online. And in a digital world where fake tour posters are scattered all over the place, it’s best not to believe everything you see either.

A poster doing the rounds late last year—claiming a new 2019 Australian tour from heavy metal rockers Metallica—got the band’s fans in a right tizzy. They were being supported (supposedly) by Megadeth and Anthrax for six shows across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in June 2019.

Despite the poster looking legit, touring giant Live Nation quickly confirmed with news site, Music Feeds, that the image was indeed a fakey. Metallica fans were left wanting. The poster was the latest in a long line of imitation posters, plaguing acts like The Amity Affliction and festivals including Download Festival Australia.

Metallica haven’t performed in Australia since Soundwave Festival back in 2013. And their last headline tour of Australia was in 2010. The 2010 tour included shows in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, as part of the ‘World Magnetic Tour’.

That said, drummer Lars Ulrich has said say the band have “gotta go to Australia” at some point during their current tour behind latest album Hardwired… To Self-Destruct. This could keep the foursome touring well into 2020.

“We gotta just sit and look. There’s Japan. There’s Australia. There’s New Zealand. There’s a couple other pockets that obviously Metallica has a long and very cool relationship with, so we just gotta sit down and figure it out,” said Ulrich in an interview with the MET Club (a Metallica fan club) in August 2018.”

“But to me the most important thing is, and this goes back to what we were talking about [the last time], the maintenance thing. We gotta go to Japan, we gotta go to Australia, we gotta go here, we gotta go there. That’s fine. As long as it’s done within the boundaries that exist."

“And so you know, I don’t think whether it’s ’19 or ’20 or whatever, to me we’re in a mode where there’s a balance to it now that’s manageable.”

Ulrich & Co. were initially believed to be touring Australia in 2017, after former Soundwave boss AJ Maddah hinted in late 2016 that a tour was happening. Maddah later claimed that Metallica would tour Australia in 2018. But a local tour has yet to materialise.

Metallica launched their ‘WorldWired Tour’ in 2016, making their way already through the US, Canada, South America, Europe, Latin America and parts of Asia.

As long Metallica comes back sometime in the not to distant future then we don’t really care! Hopefully it’s 2019 though.

Sign up to the Metallica waitlist at the The Ticket Merchant website and be the first to find out about the metal slingers (supposedly!) next Australian & NZ tour.