Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986)

A 16 minute documentary by John Heyn and Jeffrey Krulik, available on Fandor or buy it here.

Guys with a camcorder speak to admirers of Judas Priest in the parking lot at the Capital Centre where they're performing in Margo, Maryland, in 1986. Filmed on what must have been VHS or Video 8. The image was probably sharper thirty years ago and the color more life-like. 

A lot of shirtless young men. A twenty-year-old unwisely makes out with his girlfriend who says she's thirteen. I hope she was kidding.

They speak to a 21-year-old who reminded me vaguely of Matthew McConaughey in Dazed & Confused. He has a beard and chest hair, one of the few males with fully developed secondary sexual characteristics. They ask if he feels old being there. 

They all have American cars. 

At no time in my life would I have wanted to be among them, but watching it thirty years after the fact, I'm glad the kids were happy.

One young fellow pictured above in sort of a Zebra striped sleeveless jumpsuit opines:

"IT (punk rock) SUCKS SHIT! HEAVY METAL RULES!"

He elaborates: "Heavy metal rules; all that punk shit sucks. It doesn't belong in this world. It belongs on fucking Mars, man. What the hell is punk shit?" He adds, "Madonna can go to hell as far as I'm concerned."

A group of young people got backstage passes. A friend of theirs, a Judas Priest fan, died in a car accident and his mother wrote to the band and they sent the passes.

They would have really annoyed me at the time, but now, thirty years later, they seem so harmless. It makes me think I should be more tolerant of the young.