The Change In The Audience At Metal Shows

"Fat D&D neckbeard nerds" does not at all describe the heavy metal audience of my youth. Is that really what it's like these days? Almost all the male audience of the concerts I went to were fairly thin, had no beards, and had long hair. Many brought their girlfriends with them. Their main interests besides music were fast cars, partying, and of course, women. This convinces me even more that the metal audience of today has changed drastically from the 70's and 80's and apparently has changed from an audience of extroverted guys and a good number of girls into an audience of introverted, fat guys with beards whom women have no desire to be around.
This isn't the case at all.

Growing up I was never a fat neck beard, none of my friends were.

What that douche is saying is just a bunch of bull. He's trolling.
 
You seem to be a "little" too sensitive. People have different tastes...learn to deal with it!
Lol, people can have different tastes, thats fine and I do more than deal with it, I try and keep an open mind when it comes to music.

What is inexcusable is bullshit and insulting an entire sub group of people by saying "They're all a bunch of fat neckbeards" which isn't true.

If I said Rap fans are a bunch of drug dealing, driveby commiting, never finished high school losers who will live and die in the ghetto, would you say that's a fair assessment?

I wouldn't.

You're clueless.
 
Lol, people can have different tastes, thats fine and I do more than deal with it, I try and keep an open mind when it comes to music.

What is inexcusable is bullshit and insulting an entire sub group of people by saying "They're all a bunch of fat neckbeards" which isn't true.

If I said Rap fans are a bunch of drug dealing, driveby commiting, never finished high school losers who will live and die in the ghetto, would you say that's a fair assessment?

I wouldn't.

You're clueless.
The point is you seem to care too much what other people think or say about what you like. No matter what your taste in music or everything else is, you always gonna have some people saying something negative about it...who cares what they think.
 
The point is you seem to care too much what other people think or say about what you like. No matter what your taste in music or everything else is, you always gonna have some people saying something negative about it...who cares what they think.
Clueless.
 
Clueless.
okay...have it your way.

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The point is you seem to care too much what other people think or say about what you like. No matter what your taste in music or everything else is, you always gonna have some people saying something negative about it...who cares what they think.

I mean, the guy he was arguing about did call everyone who goes to metal shows fat neck-beards. That's just insulting people, it's not really an opinion on music.

On the subject at hand, the recollections of the OP are about very mainstream bands: Van Halen is enormously so, Judas Priest a little less so, and if you're counting the hair metal bands of the 1980's, they were very mainstream as well. I don't think going to a Van Halen concert puts you in the metal scene persay (I'm not trying to be insulting, nor am I saying you're not a real metal fan, I'm just pointing out that Van Halen's S/T album sold ten million copies. I doubt everyone who ever bought it, or everyone who ever went to one of their shows considered themselves a metal fan.)

The music industry has changed a ton since then. There's no way that a metal song would ever break the top forty on today's charts. Heck, there's barely any regular rock songs on there. Metal and hard rock had a separation (see nu metal), and metal constitutes the more extreme end.

I'll be honest, most people don't like modern metal. The vocals turn them away. The only band I can even think of that I might recommend to an average listener is Baroness, but it still wouldn't sound much like the late 70's early 80's bands (Power metal has clean vocals, but I'm not big on it and don't know enough about it to really make such a recommendation). If you're the type of person who wouldn't mind easing themselves into a new type of music, you might like it. If you want a song to catch you after one listen, there's not much hope.
 
I mean, the guy he was arguing about did call everyone who goes to metal shows fat neck-beards. That's just insulting people, it's not really an opinion on music.
My point still stands...no matter the subject, you always gonna have some people making dumb comments like that guy about Metal.
I always loved to read and all my live I had people making dumb comments or looking at me as if i'm from another planet because I read books.
 
Or I have a different opinion and tastes.

Who could have imagined someone thinks differently of metal than you?

The only thing people with his perspective could possibly mean that might be slightly rational is that many of today's young metal musicians are more schooled and technically proficient on their instruments than most of the old-school generation.

But that doesn't even begin to translate to superior or more inspired or more original songwriting. In fact, in my experience, the greater schooling usually means the opposite.

And at the end of the day metal is all about THE SONGS.
 
There was a time when I would have said that if you like heavy metal you're probably an extrovert. If you play in a heavy metal band and you're not an extrovert, I don't know how you got there. Does it seem the audience has changed to mostly introverts since the classic metal of the 70's and 80s? There used to be plenty of women at the shows, plenty of guys with their girlfriends, but now it seems to be an almost all male crowd of introverts who apparently have no girlfriends.

There aren't many genres of music that women usually seem to hate. Almost every type of music draws a crowd that is a fairly even mix of guys and girls. That's how a band draws a good sized crowd - there are going to be a decent number of guys there so girls want to go. Then the more girls that go to the show, the more guys want to go, etc. This works in practically everything but not in metal these days. So what is keeping the girls away, is it the change in the music or a change in the type of guys who listen to the music - guys that girls don't want to be around?
I saw Black Sabbath last summer, and it was mostly people in their 40's or older. It was the oldest crowd I have ever seen at a concert. Lots of husbands and wives. There were a lot of women there. I have not been to many other metal shows otherwise lately, but I I would guess it probably has more to do with the way metal has evolved. A classic metal band like Sabbath will still draw a lot of both sexes, but one of the more modern style metal bands probably isn't quite the same draw for the females.
 
There's a bunch of females at melodic death shows.

I can't stand power metal but I'm sure that would have the highest amount of females in attendance.
 
Metal has begun to move towards being an academic genre of music so the audience is reflecting that fact. As for the totally male crowd, thats probably largely dependent on the region you live in as well as the band, a prog metal band in Montreal is going to draw a lot more women than a death metal show in Tampa.
 
Most of the guys at metal shows are fat and probably virgins. I'm not the best looking guy, but I definitely feel better about myself after going to a metal show.

The girls at metal shows are a disaster. All the ink in the world is not going to cover up those rolls, darling.
 

No, you want proof, look for it yourself.

I'm not doing work for you, I've got better shit to do with my time.

Lol, I actually agree with Crimson Glory (great band btw), but he seems to have lost his composure here.

I'm not sure if I'd say metal is the best it's ever been these days, but there certainly is a lot more variety than there was in the past. It's also very easily accessible with youtube and other streaming services.

If you're into the more classic metal stuff, a lot of the bands of old are still making new albums on a regular basis. If you're more into death metal with crazy technical instruments, there's that too. If you want something a bit more atmospheric with clean vocals, there's plenty of bands that got you covered. Want some power metal with songs about fighting dragons on horseback? It's there.

No matter what your taste is in the genre, there's so much out there that you should be able to find a band you like. It might take a little digging, but it's out there.
 
Metal has begun to move towards being an academic genre of music so the audience is reflecting that fact. As for the totally male crowd, thats probably largely dependent on the region you live in as well as the band, a prog metal band in Montreal is going to draw a lot more women than a death metal show in Tampa.

I lived in Tampa in the late 80s and early 90s and there were plenty of women at hard rock/heavy metal shows as long as the band was somewhat melodic. The further away you got from being a band with strong melodies, the less women and especially the less good looking women you'd see. Montreal had nothing over Tampa in terms of a high population of good looking women, but sure, a band like Queensryche would certainly draw a lot more good looking women than Morbid Angel would have. Queensryche understood that you can have songs like Roads To Madness or Queen Of The Reich but to attract women, you have to have songs like The Lady Wore Black or Silent Lucidity. The death metal bands never understood that and that's why Morbid Angel couldn't ever headline a 10,000 or 15,000 seat venue with just an opening band. You have to have the light and the dark, the different shades of emotion. Led Zeppelin understood that perfectly and they are still the most successful hard rock/ heavy metal band there's ever been.
 
Either you're ignorant or just biased.

Metal today is better than it's ever been
Other than cookie monster vocals and some obscure Norwegian black death metal band, who would you say are some of the best modern metal bands? I mean bands that are akin to the 70's and 80's era of metal, like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, etc.
 
I mean, the guy he was arguing about did call everyone who goes to metal shows fat neck-beards. That's just insulting people, it's not really an opinion on music.

On the subject at hand, the recollections of the OP are about very mainstream bands: Van Halen is enormously so, Judas Priest a little less so, and if you're counting the hair metal bands of the 1980's, they were very mainstream as well. I don't think going to a Van Halen concert puts you in the metal scene persay (I'm not trying to be insulting, nor am I saying you're not a real metal fan, I'm just pointing out that Van Halen's S/T album sold ten million copies. I doubt everyone who ever bought it, or everyone who ever went to one of their shows considered themselves a metal fan.)

The music industry has changed a ton since then. There's no way that a metal song would ever break the top forty on today's charts. Heck, there's barely any regular rock songs on there. Metal and hard rock had a separation (see nu metal), and metal constitutes the more extreme end.

I'll be honest, most people don't like modern metal. The vocals turn them away. The only band I can even think of that I might recommend to an average listener is Baroness, but it still wouldn't sound much like the late 70's early 80's bands (Power metal has clean vocals, but I'm not big on it and don't know enough about it to really make such a recommendation). If you're the type of person who wouldn't mind easing themselves into a new type of music, you might like it. If you want a song to catch you after one listen, there's not much hope.

Grunge was the most definitive end of heavy metal bands being able to draw good sized crowds with lots of men and women. That was when the club scene started dying fast and once you lose the nightclubs, even major nightclubs like The Rock-It Club in Tampa which booked plenty of local and national hard rock and metal bands, you lose the new up and coming bands which are the lifeblood of the business. At other clubs, almost overnight they went from having packed clubs with hot girls in high heels and mini-skirts to half full or less than half full clubs which attracted mostly male audiences and the appearance of women that did go went from pretty girls that dressed up to look good to a much smaller crowd of women and they were wearing flannel and work boots instead of high heels, leather and lace.

The men in the bands stopped caring if they were proficient on there instruments and the women in the audience stopped caring how they looked. A complete rock show is both music and a show. KISS understood that, Van Halen understood that, so did Zeppelin, Judas Priest, AC/DC and Guns 'n Roses and that's why they dd so well and had tons of hot women at their shows. These bands that came along during the grunge era and after didn't understand the show aspect of a rock "show." The guys in these bands din't care how they looked and honestly you couldn't tell any difference between the way these so called "rock stars" looked and the way their fans looked. They all had messy, greasy hair and clothes that looked like they came from the Goodwill. They had no pride in looking like rock stars, putting on a show, and making the whole experience fun. They played in their pajamas, doped out, and had no stage presence or ability to work the audience and get them interested. Even the songs were depressing. Nothing, absolutely nothing about that scene would convince any women that you were a rock "star" because they didn't look anything like stars. They looked like anything but stars.
 
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You know what's really ironic?
White trash discovered Slayer 30 years before hipsters did.
 
Regarding the "aggressive, loud and coarse nature of the music" there is a world of difference between abandon like Pantera or Slayer, and bands like Queensryche and even Judas Priest who always had some mellow songs such as Dreamer Deceiver, Here Come The Tears, The Last Rose Of Summer, Beyond The Ralms Of death, Before The Dawn, and Burnin' Up. Quasi -metal bands like KISS also had some very melodic, fairly mellow songs and hard rock bands like Van Halen and Aerosmith even more.
Was just going to say: remember when we had metal and hard rock as main stream genres? And bands that fit between both worlds!
Now there's little if any new rock on the radio at all.
 
Other than cookie monster vocals and some obscure Norwegian black death metal band, who would you say are some of the best modern metal bands? I mean bands that are akin to the 70's and 80's era of metal, like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, etc.

That's because of this ridiculous trend towards "being as extreme as you can" in modern metal music. Being as extreme as you can is not a natural ethos for any type of music. It's entirely unnatural. That's why there is no "extreme" classic rock, extreme country, soul, blues, or classical music. The only place being extreme has any place in a rock show is in the "show" aspect such as Motley Crue setting Nikki Sixx on fire or Gene Simmons breathing fire. The music still has to sound musical and both of those bands understood that. These death and black metal bands are sacrificing melody for sounding extreme and very few people think that sounds good. It will never be more than a niche product, while the classic heavy metal bands of the 70s and 80s could sell out Madison Square Garden.
 
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