Cliff Burton Museum opens in Ljungby, Sweden
Ljungby municipality in Sweden has announced the inauguration of the Cliff Burton Museum, a partially state-funded building set up as a tribute to the late Metallica bassist.
Burton lost his life in a bus crash near Ljungby in 1986, while Metallica toured Europe with Anthrax. A memorial stone was installed near the crash site by the band’s Swedish fan club a decade ago, and the area regularly attracts metal fans who want to honor his memory.
The museum will contain photos, albums, posters and tickets, along with interviews and photos from the first photographer at the accident site – Lennart Wennberg at the magazine Expressen – plus a film with memory images from rescue workers at the scene of the accident.
Other exhibitions include a scene that recreates Metallica’s last gig with Burton in Stockholm, with copies of the bass and drum set that he and Lars Ulrich used.
As the organizers say GW“We want to honor in the first place Cliff Burton, who died so tragically in the middle of his career, and talk about who he was as a person and a musician.
“Our second main purpose is to create a meeting place for everyone who is looking for the memorial site in the small community Dörarp. We want to continue the great work that the fans started when they started raising money to make Cliff’s memorial stone. ”
More information about the museum’s launch event on Saturday 14 May can be found at Instagram (opens in new tab). Base player magazine editor Joel McIver, who wrote a biography of Burton in 2009 with a foreword by Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, will give a talk on the life and work of the late icon.