The life of late METALLICA bassist Cliff Burton will be celebrated with “Cliff Burton Day” on what would have been his 59th birthday, February 10, at Twitch.tv/GomezGrip. A special live stream is scheduled for that day at 7 p.m. PST. The event will be emceed by Nicholas Gomez, with guests including Fred Cotton, James McDaniel, John Marshall, Harald Oimen, Metal Maria, Corrine Lynn, Sean Killian and more.

Burton was asked to join METALLICA in 1982 after the band saw him perform with his group at the time, TRAUMA.

The bassist was not willing to move to Los Angeles, where METALLICA was based at the time, so they decided to move to the San Francisco area so that he would join.

Burton played on METALLICA‘s first three studio albums — “Kill ‘Em All”, “Ride The Lightning” and “Master Of Puppets” — and co-wrote classic songs like “Ride The Lightning”, “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, “Fade To Black”, “Creeping Death” and “Master Of Puppets”.

His life was tragically cut short at the age of 24 in a tour bus crash on September 27, 1986 in Sweden.

Burton‘s initial replacement in the group was Jason Newsted, who stayed in the lineup until 2001. Robert Trujillo joined in 2003 and remains in the band to this day.

February 10, 2018 was proclaimed “Cliff Burton Day” by Alameda County supervisors. The late METALLICA bassist would have turned 56 years old on that date had he lived.