An Unfortunate Trip to a Metal Concert
You know that brilliant feeling after your get your first pay check? Your pocket's full and you feel like wasting your money just cause you can. And I was feeling extra generous one day in Gulshan 2 a year or two back. With my pockets full I decided to have a plastic cup of overpriced Starbucks Coffee, nothing says you're rich like a cuppa coffee worth as much as an Ethiopian boy's kidney.
Upon arriving at the coffee place, I saw that there was a concert going on at the moment and I didn't think much of it. What the hell, might as well pay to support the music scene. I paid for my ticket and got my wrist stamped on by a seal which had a goat's head in the middle of a \m/ sign and a serial number underneath. Thinking about how my dad would later blame me for joining a Satanist cult, I walked in through the doors expecting to see a nice acoustic setup. Now, the next thing that I saw was like seeing Chris Brown in a feminist lecture. There were two amps, a PA system, a set of cheap drums set up in the corner and half the place was filled up with metalheads who wore the usual band t's like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Sepultura and a few hipster ones wearing t-shirts written in the spiky metal language all band logos are written in. I sat down and a female fronted band went up. The guitarist sported an extravagant hairstyle with several piercings and the female vocal looked quite out of place in her latex strappings. I still did not expect what might happen and that's when they started playing a Paramore track out of the Twilight movie and a group of people started headbanging near the 'stage'... inside a coffee shop. To make matters worse, their next few songs featured the lead guitarist singing Cradle of Filth tracks. Now, I won't say much about Cradle of Filth cause their name does justice to their music but this hit a new low. The guitar-vocal dude was screaming like he was birthing an imported watermelon and between the multi-coloured lights and the artificial smoke, all I could make out was his tongue piercing vibrating menacingly like a bomb about to go off. I was pretty much stuck in a trance thanks to the tongue-ring until they said thank you in a metal accent and left the stage.
The next act up were a group of bespectacled men except for the lead vocalist who was full of metal swag in his army camos. All of them were donning the same Iron Maiden t-shirt which indicated they were a Maiden cover band. I didn't mind and I still don't mind Iron Maiden, I thought this couldn't be that bad with someone playing Steve Harris's basslines. Well, the bassline was the last thing on my mind after what the vocalist did. He started growling and pointed at the guy managing the sound. To quote him, "UUUURRRRRGGHHHHHHHH MID TA BARBE UUURRRGGGHH VOLUME BARBE" AND THEN, he kept going "OOOOOHHHHRRRRRGGHHHHHHH" while shaking his fist at the sound guy until the guy refused to increase the volume any more. This was prime entertainment until the vocalist started singing; he started singing Fear of the Dark in an Indian accent. Just imagine Vennu Mallesh singing Fear of the Dark. Yes, exactly like that. After their first Maiden track and the start of the second, I began to realise that maybe setting a 500 taka note on fire and snorting the ashes would've been a better method of enjoying my money than this. I began to reach for my already cold Ethiopian boy's kidn- I mean, coffee and then the vocalist announced in his death metal voice"ARE.. YOU.. READY.. FOR SOME DEATH METAL MASTER OF PUPPEEEEETTTTSS?". That was my cue. Get the hell out of here, Rumman. This is no place for a man seeking a peaceful cup of coffee and just as I got up, someone pushed me straight into the line of headbangers. All of a sudden, everyone was pushing and hitting each other. I was buffeted by the stench of the fake smoke, metal perspiration and something that smelled like onions. After getting pushed around by a few guys and then shaking hands with them for the awesome moshpit I started(according to them), I quickly left the premises and vowed to never return there. I was not metal enough. It's my cross to bear, for I am a pansy who cannot enjoy 320bpm chromatic guitar solos.
DISCLAIMER: Any similarities between the bands I wrote about and real life bands are purely coincidental. If you find any uncanny similarities, you seriously need to rethink your life.
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