Glorious Noise’s Todd Totale checks out the Chicago stop of the Metal Masters tour (Judas Priest, Heaven and Hell, Motorhead, Testament), and in the process, remembers why he fell in love with the genre in the first place:
“…[M]y internal debate ended the moment I realized that it wasn’t my own need to relive my youth; it was the need to be a part of a collective experience. It’s hard to explain that unity that you feel with metal, but it’s there and it’s worth experiencing if you can free yourself to the point of letting go.
Call it the years of stoically standing at a critical distance at any nameless rock club, holding court with fellow snobs drinking bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon and chain-smoking American Spirit cigarettes. There is none of that judgment at a metal show; regardless of what you look like or what’s advertised on your black t-shirt, you are family and, as such, you are treated with remarkable reverence.
In short: I missed losing myself to the riff, throwing up devil horns when lyrically required, and obediently yelling back at the lead singer whenever I was directed to ‘make some fucking noise!’ There is nothing more liberating than giving in to your id, checking all pretenses at the gate and banging your head. Metal. Fucking. Rules.”
Yes. It. Fucking. Does.
