Ozzy Osbourne's Final Show Revealed Heavy Metal's Hidden Softness
The Softness of Metal
Watching Ozzy Osbourne's farewell concert from a broken ankle, a metal scholar and lifelong fan confronts the vulnerability at the heart of a genre built on hardness. As Ozzy performs seated, ravaged by Parkinson's, the author sees his own frail body and his father's decline reflected in the dying myth of metal masculinity.
What appears to be metallic hardness is but a patina for something else – the terrifying realisation that, as humans, we are all condemned to the dirt and to the limitations of the body.
- samplatt
Almost every big-name band now, metal or not, will have an 'R U OK' moment somewhere in the set. Metal has (for me) been the only gigs where it actually feels authentic.
Tall fat & autistic, I've spent my whole life trying to make myself small and not "in the way". A concert is the only place where I stand up straight, naturally, without even thinking about it. I can't stand the idea of sweat (mine or other peoples) yet I'm perfectly happy drowning in it in the middle of moshpit, grinning ear to ear with the person next to me, knowing we're experiencing the same thing. You help each other up when you fall, and you embrace each other when it's all too much.
Anyone that's been to a Devin Townsend concert will be familiar with the sight of a hundred big burly bearded blokes bawling their eyes out and hugging each other.
Therapy WISHES it had the effectiveness of metal.
- belZaah
Lemmy. The man, the myth, the legend. Like with Ozzy, there was no stage persona. I’ve met him on a street the day after the gig looking exactly as he did on stage the day before. If you listen to stories about him, you’ll find the obligatory drinking and excess. Sure. But immediately after you’ll find a lonely man who deeply cared about his team, who was probably too smart for the business and who added warmth to even simple human interaction. Ozzy was the same and it’s no coincidence his most vulnerable songs were written by Lemmy. Having met both, I miss them in this world.
- Neil44
Anecdotally my friend who works at the bar at a music venue said the rock and metal fans are always the chill-est and easiest going.