Dave and Del went to a concert recently at the Random Corporate Sponsored Outdoor Venue and Overpriced Booze Enabling Palace. Sixteen dollars for a can of beer – no matter how large the can – was robbery disguised as commerce. The show itself – the musicians, the lights, the overall spectacle – was quite enjoyable, despite Dave’s tendency to be overcome by snark at these events. The three bands each presented something different in terms of musicality and delivered their product with professional sincerity. It went off without a hitch; the riggers rigged, the lighting people assaulted the audience with strobes and lasers, and the venue security looked bored.
The audience was what caught Dave’s attention. Knowing that two of the bands had seen their heyday in the previous century, Dave expected an older crowd seeking to revive the memories of the pre-cell phone era. To a certain extent, this was true. Older men – the crowd was predominantly male and pale – made up the majority. Some had brought their children to share the experience and to get a taste of the music that had provoked Dad to get a shoulder tattoo of three guitars and an American flag with the words “American Metal” written beneath it.
“I feel positively svelte,” Del whispered as they looked around before the house lights were extinguished. Dave had to agree. Though there were certainly those who appeared to have a healthy height-weight ratio, most of the crowd reflected America’s obsession with food designed to make the eater unhealthy and fat yet well-preserved until the inevitable death by an explosive coronary event. The seats were designed to maximize the available space, not to accommodate the floppy folds of butt flesh being pressed into them. It was a struggle but in the end it was winners all around as the people were seated and the seats did not collapse.
Dave had no real animosity toward hipsters. Beneath all those layers of affects hipsters were still people, voters and taxpayers and consumers of mass quantities no different from him. While individually – at a book store, for instance, or coffee shop – they might seem a little different, in the context of a gathering such as this it was obvious their attempts at individuation had merely put them into yet the well-populated sub-group of people who had tattoos, nose and lip piercings, stones stretching out their earlobes, partially shaved heads, beards, dyed hair, silly hats, and plaid shorts.
Wait – plaid shorts?
“Plaid isn’t very metal, is it?” Del asked.
Dave paused to consider this. “It’s more of a ska thing. Anthrax wore Bermuda shorts, though.”
“Un-ironically?”
“I’m going to have to say yes, though it’s always hard to tell with Anthrax.”
“Still, Bermuda shorts are not plaid.”
“Well, these bands aren’t exactly metal, either. More like the elder statesmen of alt-rock.”
“What about that opening band… who were they again? The ones who shouted a lot and jumped around doing the ants in the pants dance.”
“Dillinger Escape Plan.”
“Right. I didn’t see them wearing plaid.”
“Look, the sartorial choices made by the audience shouldn’t be limited to a certain genre of music.”
Del looked around. “Really?”
She had a point. There was clearly a theme. Dave looked down at his own get-up and felt out of place. No one else was wearing a sports-related shirt, and with jean shorts instead of cargo shorts he just looked old and out of place, even among a crowd heavily tilted toward middle-age.
The headliner came on stage with the house lights still up. Dave looked behind him at the sparsely occupied lawn and wondered if the musicians could see they’d only drawn a half full house, or if they cared at all. As the songs rolled out from the massive speaker stacks, and the light show progressed in intensity, the crowd responded to the obligatory hand clap and sing-a-long prompts with reverential seriousness. As the singer continuously berated his fans to not trust the authorities, to bite the hand that feeds, to take control of their own lives, Dave couldn’t help but think of Brian of Nazareth berating the crowd at sunrise:
“You’re all individuals!”
“YES! WE’RE ALL INDIVIDUALS!”
“You’ve all got to figure it out for yourselves!”
“YES! WE’VE ALL GOT TO FIGURE IT OUT FOR OURSELVES!”
“I don’t think they’re hearing the message,” Dave said into Del’s ear.
She shook her head. “You always take these things too seriously,” she shouted back as strobe lights fractured the air into fragments. “Can’t you just enjoy it for what it is and stop trying to dissect the whole thing while it’s still going on? I mean, you’re writing this up in your head already, aren’t you?” When Dave looked away Del nodded. “Yeah, I knew it, I know you. Damn, loosen up already, Eeyore.”
Dave folded his arms across his chest. “I am not Eeyore,” he pouted, though he knew that to a certain extent this was true. “I’m an observer of the human condition,” he continued, but no one was listening. They were too busy dancing to somber electronic clatter booming out into the northern Virginia night.
Sebastian Gregory: On the Written Path 