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HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT – 30TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION TIMH

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Hovenaut's picture
May 30, 2016 at 8:31am
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Hi TIMH fans! Changing it up a bit today, this entry honoring an event. It was insignificant at the time, just another summertime music happening that took place in thousands of cities across our fine nation.

But this one was documented…

Let’s go back (nearly) 30 years. Saturday, May 31st...the first weekend after Memorial Day, 1986. The scene was the Capital Centre in Landover, MD, just outside of Washington, DC. The event? Judas Priest in concert, on their Fuel for Life Tour, in support of their recently released album Turbo. The FFLT tour took the band across North America, Europe, and Japan. The American leg (first leg) of the tour kicked off in Albuquerque, NM on May 2nd, with supporting act Dokken.

Within the month, the tour reached the east coast. After two shows in Dayton and Richfield, OH, the bands made their way to the nation's capital, to rock DC metro area metalheads kicking off the summer proper on a headbangin’ Saturday Night. A large departure from what things may have been not even a decade earlier… (ugh).

Armed with a video camera and a tape deck, two aspiring independent film producers decided to hit the Capital Centre pre-concert parking lot to interact/interview and record some of the crowd. Jeff Krulik was an employee for a local cable provider in Prince George’s County, MD, while John Heyn was a production assistant at a videotape (ah, the 80’s) duplication facility in Washington, DC. The two joined forces after Heyn contacted Krulik through a story in the Washington Post which mentioned a documentary idea the latter had. After a so-so initial project focusing on local musicians, the duo decided to move out of the confines of the studio to garner fan perspective. The recorded results have become the stuff of legend…

(THIS IS THE PART WHERE I INFORM YOU THE FOLLOWING RECORDING CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE, TEENS/YOUNG ADULTS DRINKING, AND REFERENCES TO DRUG USE. PARTY ON)

Without further ado, today in music history celebrates the 30th anniversary of Heavy Metal Parking Lot:

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Heavy Metal Parking Lot clocks in at over 15 minutes, capturing the best of wasted youth wrapped up nicely in the fine 80’s metal tradition…Budweiser, muscle shirts, MULLETS. An absolute American pop culture gem, HMPL is the perfect time capsule of metaldom…a teenage fan’s Spinal Tap, before Wayne and Garth, Beavis and Butthead. A viral hit before viral was viral.

The star of the show is the aptly named Zebraman, who doesn’t seem to care for punk rock or Madonna, yet makes his points oh so eloquently all the same. I also found Graham, as in “gram of dope”, very engaging, as was the Girl from Glen Burnie – who finds Rob Halford somewhat attractive (she must laugh at herself today). There’s also the parking lot attendant from Jamaica, who finds heavy metal concert goers “wild”…dawg a sweat, and long hair hide it, indeed mon. The porta-potty lines must’ve been off the chain.

Through a short, swift, quarter of an hour, Krulik and Heyn catch lighting in a bottle. The end result being a clear documentation of the suburban slice of life seen at so many of those summertime music happenings. Events that very much did take place in thousands of cities across America.

In the years since, we’ve seen metal fade and the exchanging of information rise. Maybe HMPL was the apex of 80’s metal and the birthplace of social media in that perspective. It’s become a cult classic, rumored to have been a favorite tour bus staple of grunge stalwarts Nirvana, ironic in the sense they were anointed the band who delivered the death blow to hair/glam metal as the late 80’s/early 90’s knew it. Allow me to take a moment and state it isn’t my opinion Judas Priest was of the genre (I’d consider them pre-NWOBHM pioneers, and survivors of the times, if anything).  Dokken…well, not so much.

Time marched on...the Capital Centre went on to host concerts, Caps hockey and Bullets/Wizards hoops games until 2002, when the doors were closed for good.  While it’s scary to think some of the participants of that late spring night might still live in relative proximity of my current base of operations in central MD, I’m still fascinated at watching them – out of school, out on a Saturday night, into whatever the concert experience might bring them, and ready to rock. This wasn’t me – I was just about to embark on my high school years, and really wasn’t into metal. I was more into the Beastie Boys and a blossoming hip hop scene at the time. I was a hallway everyman, and had metalhead friends, but a Priest concert at that time wasn’t my bag. My summer of ’86 was spent mowing lawns, handyman lackeying for my pops, hanging with friends, all bookended with a trip to Virginia Beach, and a trip home to Ohio, before cutting things short by August to start football.

So no, no Priest concert for me. But I’m happy that now I can experience it through HMPL – because it just captures the time, the scene, perfectly. And Zebraman, Graham (of dope), my Girl from Glen Burnie, hell even the Jamaican parking lot attendant, all had a perfectly rocking good time. Because that’s what it’s all about – people gathering together in good spirit (sometimes with good spirits), celebrating a common interest (any of that sound familiar, 11W?). In closing I also want to note this isn’t the first mention of HMPL on the site either, as a story marking the upcoming anniversary found Skull Session WMD glory back in early April.

Appreciate you reading. H/T to JCLP, Nellie, Weakside, and all the TIMH regulars for allowing me to offer up today’s serving.

Also thanking those who served and sacrificed all, Happy Memorial Day dubbers…rock on.

This is a forum post from a site member. It does not represent the views of Eleven Warriors unless otherwise noted.

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