I remember being about 10, shamefully holding a Barbie doll - once I was too old for that - playing with my sister and a haven’t-seen-her-for-ages friend when the recently arrived MTV Brazil started to show Metallica’s Enter Sandman video clip. Much as I had always been keen on music, I had never really felt it, it had never really touched me. Well, as it was Metallica, touch is inaccurate. I had never felt a song rip my innocent young skin, get deep into my guts and make me want to spit them out in excitement.
It was like the first sniff of coke – not that I’ve ever had it in my life – exciting, energetic, brutal. Of course after a short while I discovered that the Black Album was far from being as brutal as rock and roll could be, but to my pop-ballad-used ear it was a huge shock. The rough voice, the drums, the deep riffs, everything: I just knew it. I knew I should, I had to look for more. I was already addicted, and it had only been my first dose.From that moment on, thanks to some neighbors, friends and even my father, who convinced me Sepultura was one of the best bands ever (thanks, Dad! They are!), my heart has beat rhythmically, following Lars’ and Igor’s drums and Harris’s and Burton’s bass lines. I went further to any kind of rock that was at hand: classic, hard rock, heavy metal, death metal (even its name was aggressive!), punk, gothic rock, gothic metal. All that senseless teenage aggressiveness had a way out; it could finally get out of its den.
Yet… It was not enough… It was too powerful a sensation to stay still in my bedroom just listening. There had to be more. There had to be a place, a moment, anything, to let all that energy explode and become a virus and spread itself and pulse and gain more strength and … there was. And I discovered it, again with Metallica, in the early ‘90s: a rock concert. There, me and my sister, two teenage girls, on the ground, standing shoulder to shoulder with long-haired tattooed fetid bruisers, ogres and trolls, who would pointlessly hit each other and look happy… That was it. That’s where we should have always been, where we should have been born.
As time and concerts went by, getting as nearer to the stage as possible was the challenge. Elbowing our way through such peculiar and violent fauna was our biggest achievement and we would brag about it for ages. Well, we have been. Year after year, concert after concert, song after song, we lived happily, energetically, meaningfully.
Eventually, of course, we grew older, but that addiction never grew weaker – it only grew more expensive. From that on, concerts only of the Monsters, of the Gods or of the Best. Too much money, too much age, too much adulthood to go.
Good old habits die hard, though, and Ozzy Osbourne, the lord of darkness, the mad man, the bat biter, was announced to play in our city. That’s it, we’re going! On the ground, at the front, not even showering before going. Faded rock and roll tees and worn out sneakers on, let’s rock!
That thrill, nonetheless, lasted till we got there. We were at a stone’s throw distance from the stage, but again – and this time unfortunately – it wasn’t enough. The trolls were gone, the ogres, vanished. Instead there was scent, high heel and party make-up. People looked healthy and neat and you could stretch yourself between them without even touching anyone. And if you would, they would apologize.
Sepultura’s concert then started and to my utter surprise there wasn’t even a single fight, let alone a hitting-each-other-pointlessly group. Nothing. I tried hard not to care and started jumping, swearing and singing along with the band. That was when I was interrupted by a girl politely asking me to stop, for I was on a puddle and she was getting wet. What shocked me the most, however, was that she looked terrified when I politely asked her to fuck off. I could have been ripped into pieces if I had done that 15 years before. Well, she would have been ripped, actually.
By the time Ozzy stepped in the stage, I was already in pieces, devastated, miserable. Rock and roll is not dead, as it has been said for ages. I wish it was dead. I wish it was six feet under. I wouldn’t be disappointed if that was the case. But those people – and they were actually people, civilized people – liked rock and roll, they were happy and they could even sing the songs. But they couldn’t rock. And I could understand: God (or the devil) gave rock and roll to all of us, but put it in the soul of a select few.
