A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

Maiden Voyage - Pt. 1

Heavy Metal Parking Lot Restaurant

Most of you are aware of the 1986 mini-doc Heavy Metal Parking Lot, which peeled back the mystique shrouding the world of metal to show us the cream of Amerca's youth. Shot before a Judas Priest show at the Capital Center in Largo, MD. It's a wonderful, all-too brief glimpse of Mullet Nation as it existed some 20 years ago.

My own hard rock recollections from that era are fairly numerous, though somewhat less vivid. From Cheap Trick in 1983 to Motley Crue ('87) to Slayer ('88) and many others, I hung out with more than my fair share of skinny teens with bad skin and anger management issues. To anyone who attended metal shows in the 1980s, HMPL wasn't a whimsical curiosity, it was a morbid reminder of the legions of homophobic sub-literates that populated the metal scene.

Wooderson?

These images came to mind last Thursday (5/22), when Iron Maiden's "Somewhere Back in Time" tour hit Houston. The Thing That Walks Like a Man and I were heading to Baker St. Restaurant & Pub in the swanky Waterway section of the Woodlands to meet Joni for some pre-concert beers. The two of us were both dressed in acceptable concert gear: black t-shirt and jeans/shorts, an ensemble that works for most musical events. But while we'd made a (conscious or not) decision not to be "that guy" by wearing shirts of the band we were seeing, we were definitely in the minority.

Baker St. had been taken over by the Iron Maiden F(an) C(lub) (I'm a member, but only for ticket presale purposes). For just like the Cap Center itself - demolished to make way for a mall - so too is the pre-concert parking lot experience only a distant memory. Fans wanting to get their drink on before paying $10 per Fosters in one of our nation's many fine corporate multi-purpose entertainment venues won't be welcome in the heavily patrolled parking areas. But that's okay, because the chain outlets like Baker St. that make up the larger business districts surrounding these arenas will welcome today's older, fatter metal aficionado with open arms.

At first, I felt kind of bad for folks wandering in for a random happy hour drink or an early dinner (and especially the older folks who were there for a birthday party), but the overwhelming majority of those in the bar were in their 30s, fairly well-off, and relatively docile. Many had also brought their own kids, for whom the act of attending an Iron Maiden show with Mom and Dad was probably such a lethal combination of ironic detachment and self-loathing they bled from the eyes for hours.

At least the token Ratt fan didn't appear to have any children.

Wow, my generation hasn't aged well. I suggested to a guy sitting next to us that maybe Messrs. Pearcy and DeMartini were opening for the Irons. His reply: "I fucking hope not."

All told, a full afternoon. Between trying to convince one particularly hammered "young" lady of the need to eat something before the show (she declined) and trying to convince Christine the waitress to take our extra ticket (she also declined, but only because she made the mistake of asking her manager), it was a pleasant, air-conditioned lead-in to the show itself. And nary a mullet to be found.

Next: Out Spinal Tapping Spinal Tap