Strange but true:

Legendary rock band Metallica – the band that’s sold more than 95 million albums, the band together since 1981, the Enter Sandman band, the arena-filling band — played a small Nashville music venue called The Basement Thursday night.

For those who don’t know, The Basement is, well, a basement, below Grimey’s previously-enjoyed music store on 8th Avenue South, a few blocks north of Zanies comedy club. And it holds about 200 people, and that might be flirting with some sort of fire code violation.

The band is in town for Bonnaroo. They play at 9 tonight (Friday).

Seems Thursday’s show was some sort of private invitation-only deal, for fans and venue staffers. There’s a tiny clip of the show up already on YouTube.com.

In fact, I wouldn’t have believed it if News 2 photojournalist Reed Nolan hadn’t gone down and snagged some video of lead singer James Hetfield.

Of course, James has had his Nashville moments in the past. He played a CMT Outlaws taping at the Sommet Center in 2004, joining Kid Rock, Hank Williams Jr. and others in a tribute to Willie Nelson (also playing Bonnaroo today), Waylon Jennings and his wife, Jessi Colter.

James told USA Today back then that he was a Waylon fan because, among other things, “My dad liked him.”