music blurb..."Red" at Rock and Roll Pizza, Hard Rock Cafe

My field trip to a heavy metal concert.

Just got back from seeing Red. I strolled in at 10:00 and caught one of the early acts - crooked X. They were just OK to me - I really prefer melodic music. The crowd seemed to enjoy them however. They were pretty much straight up head banger music for their whole set. I think their Mom was selling T-shirts in the back at the concession table, she knew all the words to their songs and was older than most of the crowd - whenever I looked at her she was singing. If so that's pretty cool.

Then came Red. Their set was much better...I like my music melodic; and to me Red has it. I have never been to a heavy metal venue before so it was eye popping. Usually when I go to a concert, everyone's dancing and I feel like I should at least sway or something. Here much of the time there was minimal crowd movement which I liked and I felt relaxed. During one song, Red asked everyone to bounce. We all jumped up and down for a minute 'til the tempo changed. During one song we all waved our arms back and forth and during one we made fists in the air for a bit. But generally most of the time standing was the norm. Almost every song was punctuated with brief head banger movement from the crowd...and Red. It was common but short lived bursts a few times per song. I guess that move can't be done for very long. Maybe the minimal movement for the bulk of the song is to save energy for the head banger bursts.

Near the stage in the mosh pit was another story. Frequently during the rockin' parts of the songs the mosh pit would rev up with activity. Folks would walk around the mosh pit shoulder and side-butting each other or pushing...sometimes running and doing the same. The people around the mosh pit acted as a human bumper to prevent the mosh pit people from bouncing/ falling out too far. A few people fell to the ground but they were always quickly helped up. On one occasion, a bouncer had to pull one guy out for a "time out." I didn't see why; he got to come back in after about 5 minutes. On another occasion another guy got a warning when he raised his fists in the mosh pits; obviously against head banger mosh pit etiquette. Mostly guys were involved in this but some gals. It was quite intense in the mosh pit and probably not a comfortable place for most women, or me.

I learned three hand signs, they looked like: 1) Extend arm straight up, make a fist; then let your second and fifth finger point straight out. I think this means "right on, Oh Ya!" 2) Extend arm up straight, wiggle fingers rapidly like you're tapping them against a wall in order from the second finger to the fifth, over and over - this was done when a hot guitar lick was underway. It was also done sometimes as a greeting. 3) Extend arm straight up, point finger up. I think this meant the same as the first, but it was used less often so maybe it has some other meaning.

One thing I found particularly interesting. There was no text-messaging going on. I've never seen a crowd of youth not text messaging before. Other things I noticed were lots of tattoos; only a few pierced body parts though. I saw lots of T-shirts - Demon Hunter; Affliction; Got Jesus?; Sanctify; Billabong. Quite a lot of T-shirts on guys, almost nothing else. Lots of girls were in tank tops, standard types mostly, not the string types (maybe the string types aren't sufficient for the mosh pit). Pants were the normal for guys and gals, all darkish, at a minimum blue jean or darker jeans. A lot of gals had pulled back hair. Guy hair styles were long or short but more longs than you usually see. There were more shaved heads than you'd normally see around. A few fo hawks.

At the start of the Red set a couple walked in and stood next to me. They were clearly outsiders like me. The gal had an orange T-shirt (colors were rare there) and clutched her purse under her armpit. The guy was clean shaven with a plaid collar shirt. They stayed for half the event then left. They probably stood next to me 'cus I stood out with my tan Lee Jeans and tan T-shirt.

Thank God I brought ear plugs. The music was ear-drum crushing loud. Even during breaks they left the background music so loud you could hardly converse during the breaks. During the set, the vocals were hard to hear over the music. The lead singer and the whole band were passionate and intense and fun to watch. Overall I enjoyed the concert. My only quibble would be that I'm someone who likes to hear the lyrics and that was difficult.

In the video below you can see alot of what I was mentioning above.