Let’s see, I gotta think back to individual shows, and if I try to do that without writing it down as I go, I’ll fuck up, so bear with the jankiness of the comment please.
In terms of real metal, as in bands that lay claim to the genre, and back that claim up. Metallica for sure, and the multiple shows I’ve been to of theirs backs that up.
Maiden isn’t as popular with women, but I’d feel comfortable saying that have a strong fan base there, and I definitely experienced the women in the men’s room thing at their shows.
Type o neg is maybe not really metal, but they sure as hell had women alll over their shows, and they’re honorary metal imo, if not real metal.
While I wasn’t able to go to shows by the time they came around, jinjer has a massive female fan base. And I’ve seen footage of their shows that supports that. Which, it’s kinda cheating to point to female fronted bands, but they’re still not mostly women in the crowds, it’s still male dominated out there. Same with bands like spiritbox, or other woman fronted or all woman groups. Well, maybe The Warning is mostly a female fan base, but it isn’t a massive majority.
If you expand into hard rock, and other metal adjacent genres, it gets even broader. All of the hair bands had a ton of women or girls in their fan base. Poison in particular was batshit in that way. You could have trouble seeing other guys in their crowds lol. And they do still draw women to shows in numbers, as does Brett solo. Ratt, Cinderella, Great White, all those bands that got right to the edge of being metal sometimes, but didn’t quite abandon hard rock drew that audience in as well. Def Leppard was never even close to metal, and never claimed otherwise, but holy shit, were their shows estrogen heavy. Still are.
Now, the heavier you get, the less it becomes a thing. Even in melodic death metal, it’s a sausage fest. Amon Amarth can barely draw enough women to shows to crowd the ladies’ room supposedly, and they’re as accessible as melodeath gets. You get info stuff like dying fetus, and you won’t see many women at all, much less enough to crowd into the men’s room.
But, beyond those, I’ve been to metal shows for corrosion of conformity and seen women in the men’s room. Saw that happen with a7x, HIM, and whatever that one band was that has bullet in the name. It’s easier to run into smaller venues, so I’ve seen it with regional and local bands more often, but it was still a cubicle visible and obvious chunk in the audience, not just a handful that all had to pee at the same time.
Shit, I went to a Marilyn Manson show with my cousin once, and not only were there women lined up in the men’s room, they were lined up, peeing outside because there just weren’t enough stalls for the hundreds of women in line.
And I wanna say it was COC that was at a mid sized venue where the stalls had no doors in the men’s room, so a bunch of us ran the line for men about three feet in front, with everyone facing the other way so that the women could have the illusion of privacy. Might have been a different band, but it was one of the metal shows I saw with my cousin when I visited him. The guys that organized it stayed in the line the rest of the show, with a couple of us meatier dudes making sure everyone stayed eyes front and didn’t pull any bullshit. I know there were enough women at that show that the line kept moving in there for the last half of a set that was over an hour. There was a line of men like that too, but it was a lot of women.
Had to have been three hundred women total, and iirc, that venue only holds maybe 1500 seats, and there was also ladies room that was working.
Women are definitely a minority at metal and hard rock shows, but not as minor as people think.
Fuck! Side story!
I met a lady at a Metallica show back in the late nineties. Same deal there, women lined up in the men’s room.
One of the women was about 3 feet tall. She came out while I was zipping up, and ended up kinda catching the movement as she was walking by. Got super embarrassed, blushed and ran out.
I exit the lavatory, and she’s on the ground. Ran into someone, ended up busting her ass. Asked her if she was injured, and she wasn’t. Offered to play bulldozer for her, if she wanted. Kinda walk slow and make sure there was space behind me so she wouldn’t get slammed. She asked if I was hitting on her, and I said nah, but if she wanted to wait at the exit after the show, I would then.
She waited!
Nice lady. We hung out for a while.
Totally tangential, but it was a woman in the men’s room at a metal show.
Let’s see, I gotta think back to individual shows, and if I try to do that without writing it down as I go, I’ll fuck up, so bear with the jankiness of the comment please.
In terms of real metal, as in bands that lay claim to the genre, and back that claim up. Metallica for sure, and the multiple shows I’ve been to of theirs backs that up.
Maiden isn’t as popular with women, but I’d feel comfortable saying that have a strong fan base there, and I definitely experienced the women in the men’s room thing at their shows.
Type o neg is maybe not really metal, but they sure as hell had women alll over their shows, and they’re honorary metal imo, if not real metal.
While I wasn’t able to go to shows by the time they came around, jinjer has a massive female fan base. And I’ve seen footage of their shows that supports that. Which, it’s kinda cheating to point to female fronted bands, but they’re still not mostly women in the crowds, it’s still male dominated out there. Same with bands like spiritbox, or other woman fronted or all woman groups. Well, maybe The Warning is mostly a female fan base, but it isn’t a massive majority.
If you expand into hard rock, and other metal adjacent genres, it gets even broader. All of the hair bands had a ton of women or girls in their fan base. Poison in particular was batshit in that way. You could have trouble seeing other guys in their crowds lol. And they do still draw women to shows in numbers, as does Brett solo. Ratt, Cinderella, Great White, all those bands that got right to the edge of being metal sometimes, but didn’t quite abandon hard rock drew that audience in as well. Def Leppard was never even close to metal, and never claimed otherwise, but holy shit, were their shows estrogen heavy. Still are.
Now, the heavier you get, the less it becomes a thing. Even in melodic death metal, it’s a sausage fest. Amon Amarth can barely draw enough women to shows to crowd the ladies’ room supposedly, and they’re as accessible as melodeath gets. You get info stuff like dying fetus, and you won’t see many women at all, much less enough to crowd into the men’s room.
But, beyond those, I’ve been to metal shows for corrosion of conformity and seen women in the men’s room. Saw that happen with a7x, HIM, and whatever that one band was that has bullet in the name. It’s easier to run into smaller venues, so I’ve seen it with regional and local bands more often, but it was still a cubicle visible and obvious chunk in the audience, not just a handful that all had to pee at the same time.
Shit, I went to a Marilyn Manson show with my cousin once, and not only were there women lined up in the men’s room, they were lined up, peeing outside because there just weren’t enough stalls for the hundreds of women in line.
And I wanna say it was COC that was at a mid sized venue where the stalls had no doors in the men’s room, so a bunch of us ran the line for men about three feet in front, with everyone facing the other way so that the women could have the illusion of privacy. Might have been a different band, but it was one of the metal shows I saw with my cousin when I visited him. The guys that organized it stayed in the line the rest of the show, with a couple of us meatier dudes making sure everyone stayed eyes front and didn’t pull any bullshit. I know there were enough women at that show that the line kept moving in there for the last half of a set that was over an hour. There was a line of men like that too, but it was a lot of women.
Had to have been three hundred women total, and iirc, that venue only holds maybe 1500 seats, and there was also ladies room that was working.
Women are definitely a minority at metal and hard rock shows, but not as minor as people think.
Fuck! Side story!
I met a lady at a Metallica show back in the late nineties. Same deal there, women lined up in the men’s room.
One of the women was about 3 feet tall. She came out while I was zipping up, and ended up kinda catching the movement as she was walking by. Got super embarrassed, blushed and ran out.
I exit the lavatory, and she’s on the ground. Ran into someone, ended up busting her ass. Asked her if she was injured, and she wasn’t. Offered to play bulldozer for her, if she wanted. Kinda walk slow and make sure there was space behind me so she wouldn’t get slammed. She asked if I was hitting on her, and I said nah, but if she wanted to wait at the exit after the show, I would then.
She waited!
Nice lady. We hung out for a while.
Totally tangential, but it was a woman in the men’s room at a metal show.
I hung out with a girl at the metal show, she saw me put away my dick and I was like “oh no”.
Well, it’s about how you shove it back in, I guess