August 8, 1992: The Night Heavy Metal Died

Posted by Luminator (A) on August 8, 2017 at 19:06:12

During the 91-92 school year, rap and grunge took over, wiping out all other genres of popular music. Those of us who liked musical variety desperately clung, mostly in vain, to other those other genres.

During the summer of '92, despite the overwhelming popularity of Nirvana, they actually were not #1. That would be Billy Ray Cyrus. But neither were Nirvana #2 or #3. Those spots were actually held by Guns 'N Roses and Metallica.

On Saturday, August 8, 1992, my friends met at San Francisco's Rossi Playground. We played softball for maybe an hour-and-a-half. Around 8 then decided to go to Japantown Bowl. Since I lived across the street from the alley, most of my friends came over to my place.

I do not recall where we got our food, or what percentage was forged from my kitchen, but we did have a variety of stuff with white rice as the base. And I do remember one girl sprinkling nori (dried seaweed) on everyone's plate.

After dinner, with still some daylight left, we were basically just chilling, munching on fruits, chips, and candy. MTV had one of those news updates, with Kurt Loder. He was the one who reported on the riots, which had just erupted at the Montreal's Olympic Stadium. You see -- and this may be hard to believe -- Metallica and Guns 'N Roses were on a co-headlining tour.

That fateful August 8 night, Metallica opened. Frontman James Hetfield got too close to pyro, and his arm caught on fire. This caused the band to abort their performance. After an exceedingly long wait, GNR finally took the stage. However, without an explanation to the crowd, GNR abruptly left. That triggered the rioting.

Upon viewing Kurt Loder's report, my friends were stunned. After all, we had been fans of Metallica and GNR, and had seen them plenty of times. Little did we know, that would be the final nail in the coffin of that phase of heavy metal. In the population at large, heavy metal would not register a blip on the radar, until perhaps the comebacks of the latter half of the Oughts.

Little did we know on 8/8/92 that the Toronto Blue Jays, a Canadian team (!), would go on to win the 1992 World Series. Little did we know on 8/8/92 that the Montreal Canadiens would go on to win the Cup, Canada's last, as of this writing. On 8/8/92, little did we know that that would be our last summer together. The next one, some of us graduated from college, did not return home to the Bay Area, entered the workforce, and did not have any free time. But some of the friends would leave mid-fi, and get into high-performance audio.

25 years later, heavy metal has lost its edge, but enough time has passed that some of my friends now have kids (e.g., above) who are in college. The kids have taken the torch... No. You and I have never given up the torch. The kids may be fans, but they weren't there 25 years ago, when the late-80s glory years ran out of steam, and had a violent truncation, that 8/8/92 night of rioting in Montreal.

So weird now, that the current iteration of GNR are actually rather professional.

-Lummy The Loch Monster

Wherever I May Roam (Open in New Window)

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Topic - August 8, 1992: The Night Heavy Metal Died - Luminator 19:06:12 08/8/17 (2)

died? - Ugly 07:58:55 08/12/17 (0)

RE: August 8, 1992: The Night Heavy Metal Died - fantja 13:08:51 08/9/17 (0)

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