volbeat, choices and modern heavy metal culture

Okay, here we go.
I’m afraid this will be a fairly long entry, as I had plenty of time to think about it yesterday night on the long and arduous way home (long live the public transportation in Munich) …

Life is about choices, and every choice you make also means not chosing the various alternatives. The human psyche is constructed in a way that, after making a decision, it usually takes care that we don’t doubt a lot. We convince ourselves that the choice we made was the best one, and that the other alternatives weren’t really good options anyway (there is a lot of interesting psychological research to the topic, see this video as an example).

These mechanisms are a bit screwed up in my brain, I doubt a lot, especially regarding choices. About alternatives I could have taken, about other paths I could have chosen – but yesterday night, it felt like there was only one place on this planet to be, it felt like I made the right decision: I was at the Volbeat concert in Augsburg.

Now let me tell you about the Rockfabrik where the concert took place:
an underground labyrinth of small rooms, mostly painted in black, a very tiny stage with an area in front of it where a maximum of … 300 people could stand? Well, the area was as wide as the tiny stage, and around 8 metres deep, so I’d reckon about 60m² maximum. This area had only one small exit, and around the area (a bit like a boxing ring) there were also a lot of people standing and watching.

Volbeat … the band is close to getting their first platinum album, they play a mix of rock’n'roll/heavy metal with some country elements (the singer is a big fan of both Johnny Cash and Elvis), and have their very own genuine music style.
The whole concert was a big “we”, it was a “together” of a great band and great fans. The band treated us as what we are: their everything. We buy their CD’s and merch products, we made them popular, and they appreciated it the whole concert through. The singer thanked us many times very authentically for our support and the great evening.
A few examples of that “together” I’m rambling about: the singer handed out Whiskey to the crowd (and drank from the bottle after it was returned), he made a lot of jokes with us, he invited some people to the stage to sing with him, and even went stagediving himself in one song and kept on singing (I was really surprised when I jumped into someone while dancing, who looked pretty much like the singer, who had a microphone in the hand, who sang … “oooh it’s him!!!”). The guys stayed on stage after the concert for a while to shake hands with every fan who wanted to (which took quite some time), they joined the crowd after the concert to drink some beers together … what can I say, what a great evening.

A few notes on modern heavy metal culture in Germany for those who are not very much into that kind of business:

• My arms are bruised, and I’m afraid my ears will never be the same again.
• It would be extremely irresponsible not to dispose of my tshirt in a nuclear waste facility. And I’m serious about it.
• There are 3 subtypes of fans I wouldn’t miss at concerts:
  The drug-idiot, carrying a full glass of beer and a lit cigarette in an extremely crowded headbanging mob
  The dancing drunk, because there a specific rules you have to obey to when dancing in order to secure everyones safety, and very drunk people just endanger other people dancing around them
  The agressive chicken, too scared to dance himself, but aggressively pushing other people around like crazy.
• Another note about the rules when headbanging: well, the most dangerous parts of bodies really are the elbows, so keep them to yourself and only use them to block other people jumping into you. Keep them at the height where they belong, never dance with elbows in height of other people’s heads. Which leads to the group of people I severely fear at concerts: small girls! Reason 1: I have to take care not to hurt them (my elbows can hit their heads very easily). Reason 2: Their elbows are prone to hurt my manly parts badly ….

Thanks for the great evening!