Austin Web Designer - Adam Freetly

I sometimes wonder what it must be like for women at metal shows. My experience at shows involves a lot of shoving, elbowing, hair-in-the-face, and the occassional experience of moving without walking, because the crowd is surging. But every guy who brings his girlfriend, and every guy who winds up standing next to a girl, at some point i'll see them trying to push back the entire crowd, to keep them from squashing the woman next to them.

I find myself doing it too. I know it's a form of sexism. I've heard women complain about not getting to enjoy hardcore shows properly because no one lets them get punched in the face1 . At the same time, it's hard to turn off the instinct to protect the pretty girl from the 300 lb. oaf who's to busy still throwing devil horns to bother stopping himself from falling over backwards. i dunno.

Anyway, the in flames show was pretty awesome. You know, after lacuna coil got off the stage. There's showy, and then there's cheesy. a quick list of signs that you've crossed into the latter:

• your band has matching outfits, with slightly different variations for the singers
• your singers make up hand motions to go along with the lyrics of the song
• when one of the singers is waiting for their part, they are seen posing for audience cell phone cameras

In Flames led off with Pinball Map and Leeches, which made my night right off the bat. After that, though, they played mostlly songs from Reroute and STTYE. They played one song each from Clayman, Colony, and Jester Race, and maybe 3 songs from Come Clarity. It's not to say that they didn't put on an amazing show. I may have to re-listen to those albums now, given how fun the show was, despite them not playing most of my favorite songs.

1. I think that might be it's own sickness. i go to fewer hardcore shows than metal shows, mainly because i'm just not a fan of getting punched in the face