Mark Wright’s Blog

It has been a busy time at Blue Sand of late.  While it is great that business is good, all work and no play makes Mark a dull boy.  So I took it upon myself to take a trip down memory lane.  There is an outdoor concert hall about a mile from the office so I decided to go to the Masters of Metal festival they were having.

I will go ahead and admit it now.  I am a reformed metal head.  The music of my high school parking lot was Judas Priest, AC/DC and others of that genre.   While I was not one of those people that wore studded belts and wrist bands, I did own more than my fair share of black concert t-shirts. 

The line-up was as follows:

Testament
Motorhead
Heaven & Hell (Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio singing)
 Judas Priest

As I began my trek into the past, I started to notice many changes.  As I arrived at the venue, I had to take everything out of my pockets, lift my shirt and make a full turn to show I wasn’t carrying any contraband.  By the time it was my turn, I knew what I needed to do and the security person was actually complimentary that I could follow directions.

Once inside, I needed liquid refreshment.  I see the sign on the stand.  Frosty Beverages, $9.50.  Unfortunately this was not an all you can drink price but for each libation.  I grudgingly forked over the money and decided to move on to the souvenir stand.  I want to go on the record as saying I had no intention of purchasing a t-shirt.  Somehow, having a black concert shirt is not as cool to me now as it was two decades ago.  However, I did want to see what they had.  I got a huge lesson in economics.  I remember my father talking about how inexpensive things used to be.  I finally got my dose of this.  I can now tell my kids and grandkids (if I ever get around to having any), “When I was your age, black concert shirts were only $12.”  They are $35 freaking dollars now.  Holy Cow!  I almost fell over.  The funny part was that the lines were five and six deep to purchase them. 

Now I am finally in the venue.  I purchased lawn tickets so I needed a lawn chair ad sitting on the grass is no longer an option.  I bought my chair and found a nice spot to sit.  I then began to take a look around at the crowd.  I learned something that day.  Old metal heads do not age well.  The tattoos start to fade, the ponytail has more than a little gray and the Judas Priest t-shirt that you bought on the 1980 British Steel tour probably needs to be retired. 

I did see something that I thought was pretty cool.  There were a lot of dads taking their kids to see these bands.  The kids seemed to like the music a lot.  The crowd was also a lot younger than I imagined. 

As for the bands, it was a lot of fun.  One of the things about metal bands that I like is that they put a lot of attention into the show.  They use a lot of stage props, smoke, flash pots and other things to enhance the experience.  I wish more bands took the time to do this.  The bands were also still very good.  Most of these guys have to be in their 50s by now if not even older.  They truly do still rock though. 

About the only downer to the night other than the pricing of beer and concert t-shirts was a phenomenon that always seems to occur.   I don’t know if it is a time vortex or some sort of black hole, but I somehow always seem to sit next to the most over-served person at an event.  If that person is at an event, he will always find a way to be in my general area.  This night’s culprit was a 40 year old guy that wanted to prove to everyone that he could rock harder than anyone at the show.  After copious amounts of beer and who knows what else, he was in full effect.  He even broke into a version of the Huntington Beach Skank (A type of dance for those who don’t know), in which he lost his balance a couple of times and went crashing into lawn chairs.  At the very end of the show, he found some kindred spirits and they formed a mini mosh pit and began slam dancing.  I saw that as my cue to exit stage left. 

I really had a good time.  While I don’t believe in living in the past, sometimes it is not so bad to visit it for at least a little while.