Nothing to Prove

Tuesday night marked the 5th time I’ve seen Machine Head perform in concert. It was raahh and grrr and bwaahh and whatever to almost everyone reading this, but to me and the dozen hundred black clad brethren screaming their lungs out, it was everything. Frontman Robbie Flynn even questioned at one point, ‘Isn’t this why you’re here? To let loose?’ For so many of us, heavy metal music has always been about a release, an understanding, and an acceptance that we so lacked in the rest of our lives. And the dancing of heavy metal involves pushing, pulling, bumping, hitting, shouldering, stomping, circling, colliding, bouncing, rolling, and occasionally Bravehearting, all to the beat of bass drums, shrieking guitars, and balls-to-the-wall vocals. My first concert was in February of 1999. I was 13 and went to see four bands that I barely knew, only overheard. I was a slender build, definitely not equipped to handle the physical demand of being on the floor at the Metro when Fear Factory took the stage, but I felt like one of the cool kids when I helped line the edges of the pit while my brother and his metal cohort gallivanted through the chaos with ironic glee, pushing and guiding any sweaty figure that came into my line of sight. And line of sight is important on the floor of a concert, and as any true metal-goer will confirm, the north edge of the pit is the clearest view of the band you can attain, assuming you can handle cattle-prodding the angry masses and occasionally relying on the folks behind you to add as an extra support system. It wasn’t until my next concert that I broke my moshing cherry. And as more and more concerts stacked up, the pit became my friend. Why would I put my under-sized body through such seeming torment? Because surviving the biggest or the fastest or the nastiest feels like getting a purple heart pinned to your chest. To us, those were battles and it was an honor to say ‘I ran through the biggest and the baddest, so look at me.’ The highlight of my career was Ozzfest 2004, second stage, through the gravel and the dust, bandanna covering the lower half of my face, galloping through what seemed like acres of confusion and pain while Lamb of God broke down the nastiest of songs. Runner up: Disturbed, Killswitch Engage, Lacuna Coil, and Chimaira at Northerly Island where I took about 5 songs off total over the course of the show. See, bragging is part of the game. Or it was. A part of the metal or alternative culture is always attempting to be the craziest or the first or the coolest dude or dudette around. You want to wear the shockingist T-Shirt and seen the most amount of live music and drink the most amount of beers and wait-hold on… this shit happens everywhere; in every group. The day before the Machine Head concert I had returned home from a snowboarding trip to Snowbird, Canyons, and Park City Mountains near Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a completely different group of guys, a completely different mentality, and a completely different approach to a group dynamic… right? All we can talk about is the fastest we've ever bombed down a run, or the steepest slope we've ever survived, or the deepest powder we've ever struggled through, or the most air we've ever landed off a kicker. We have apps that tell us how many vertical feet we travel in a day; thanks for making it easier to perfectly compare who was better. It’s all we can talk about. If you talk about how cold it was, I will tell you my coldest adventure (-15 for a high). It’s a constant state of one-upping. But as a seasoned 29-year-old with a steady head on my shoulders, as long as copious amounts of alcohol aren't part of the equation, I’m past that life (or at least I try to be). Because I realized that either one of two things are true. As I stand behind some over-excited concert goer standing in front of his reserved stool at the House of Blues, people will either look at me and think I’m not as cool as they are for whatever reason, or they won’t have a second thought. And either way results in me not giving a shit. I don’t have anything more to prove. It might be a sign of adulthood, or laziness, or just being tired of having to keep up, but it feels so damn good to let it go. For years I felt like I had something to prove. That the little guy at the concert needed to rough it up with the big boys to gain respect. That the rookie had to fly over a jump to gain respect. That the socially challenged dud must find someone to show off. Truth of the matter is I don’t give a shit anymore. Your destructive opinion of me doesn't change my empowering opinion of me. Less judgment, more balance, more happiness.

Photo credit: Joe Lazzerini