Weekend Poll: T-Shirts

This weekend's poll has a little bit to do with music, but just as much to do with the externalities of being a music fan. There was a time, when I was a young man enmeshed in the ultra-status-conscio​us metal and punk underground, when the least cool thing a human being could possibly do was wear a band's T-shirt to that same band's show. Indeed, the T-shirt you chose to wear had to be as obscure as possible, to prove what an incredibly devoted fan of the underground you truly were.

But last week at the Metallica concert at Madison Square Garden in NYC, the opposite was true: the sold-out arena was packed with screaming fans, the vast majority of whom were wearing Metallica shirts. I've seen the same thing happen at AC/DC and Iron Maiden shows I've been to in the last couple of years. (And on a slightly lower level, album-sales-wise, there's the phenomenon of Black Label Society, whose fans dress like a biker gang with their leather BLS vests. Those dudes always kinda freak me out.)

I'm still a don't-wear-the-band'​s-shirt-to-their-sho​w guy; old habits die hard. But am I in the minority on this one? Or is it just that really big bands get a pass (even your mom probably likes a couple of AC/DC songs), while smaller-scale acts still have to maintain their "edge"? Speak up, headbangers! Tell me how you feel.