I can’t really say that heavy metal is my favorite genre of music, although I did enjoy a brief Metallica kick in high school and I do rely on DragonForce to keep me awake during late night painting sessions. That said, I want to describe a recent, and unexpectedly AWESOME heavy metal experience.

 The other night my musician friend Mitch, from Philadelphia, drove down to Charlottesville for a last minute gig at a local bar/music venue. Mitch plays bass in the heavy metal trio Haley, named after the lead singer/growler. Their album cover shows the leather-clad, eye-linered, tattooed band members posed together wearing purposefully blank expressions. The track list on the back reads as follows: 1)Burning Witches 2)Blacked Out 3)Hallowed 4)Devour 5)Stop This Ride 6)Pain is Love 7)Leeches 8)Apathy 9)Broken Guitars 10)Drown Me. My favorite is the CD design, which boasts an x-ray hand giving the middle finger.

 The band didn’t show up in a big tour bus- no, they showed up two hours late in a 1984 Chevy conversion van that had broken down just outside of Philly. The band didn’t arrive with hundreds of adoring metal fans awaiting the show, either. In fact, when I got there, a few songs into the show, five people were in attendance, total, including myself…and the bartender. As it turns out, CLAW (Charlottesville Ladies Arm Wrestling) was going on the same night, stealing the vast majority of would-be concert attendees and leaving the bar virtually empty. (I confess, CLAW was the reason I was late to the show myself)

 Between the long drive, the van trouble, the late start, and the lack of fans, the band had plenty of reason to be sour. They could have easily pulled an entitled rock-star move and refused to play. They could have been condescending to the few of us in attendance, as if it were our fault that no one else had showed up. 

 Instead, they chose something redemptive and life-giving. Those guys went nuts. The lead singer screamed his bloody guts out and shredded guitar solos on his back, jumping off speakers, playing with his mouth. I swear his head nearly exploded more than once. Mitch, on bass, never stopped head banging throughout the entire two hour set, which they played without break. They played old stuff, they played new stuff, they played stuff they had never tried live. The three of us facing the stage got totally sucked in, playing air guitars and punishing air drums. The fourth attendee, a middle-aged guy in khakis who had clearly told his wife he was off for a late-night milk run, stood off to the side with both fists in the air and his eyes closed. It was pure bliss. In a moment of humor the lead singer pointed to khaki guy and me, “Alright, you guys are gonna count us off…right side of the stadium give me a ONE, TWO,” and to the couple on the other side of the bar, “left side of the stadium, give me a THREE, FOUR!” Of course the four of us obliged, shouting an enthused “ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!” and the band jumped into the next song, “Apathy”. At the end of the show, the lead singer declared it was “free pin night” and passed out pins with the x-ray middle finger. While he was at it, he gave all of us free CDs. After the second encore, the four fans chatted it up with the band and helped them pack up the reluctant van.

The whole night was a thing of beauty- three guys using their musical gifts with crazy wild abandon, totally content with the most humble of opportunities to perform. Is there some explicit message of redemption in Haley’s music? No. Are you going to find any hope in songs like “Apathy” or “Drown Me”? No. Did the four of us in attendance leave that show touched by the power of art and human passion? You bet. I am convinced God delighted in this modest show.  This common grace business is interesting- we’re all made in the image of the Creator, and so often our own creative work reflects that glory in moments of unintended beauty. So here’s what I’m left pondering: which is more important, the act of creating, or the thing created?