Rockin' the HoJo

by Colin Hunter

Overheard at the Kitchener-Waterloo Metalfest this past Saturday:

Guy #1: "My ears are really ringing, man!"

Guy #2: "Yeah, that's wayyy too much amps for this room."

Guy #1: "What?"

Guy #2: "Yeah, I know!"

It was with a mixture of giddy excitement and morbid curiosity that I checked out the second annual K-W Metalfest at the Howard Johnson Hotel.  Giddy excitement because I love a good metal concert, and morbid curiosity because it was happening at, of all places, the HoJo. 

I can honestly say I've never been to a heavy metal concert, or any form of entertainment, at a HoJo. And let me tell ya: it was awesomely awkward.

Upon entering the HoJo Saturday night, one was first greeted by a worried-looking concierge, who clearly had never before seen so many long-haired, tattooed people in black t-shirts in one place. One was also greeted by a thumping, throbbing sound which could be followed straight to the Metalfest.

The concert itself was held in a big, innocuously carpeted conference room that had patches of flowery wallpaper where windows would have been if the room weren't tucked deep inside the HoJo's inner sanctum. A bald older gentleman, clearly not a metalhead himself, was seated at a folding table selling chips and pop, his auditory health protected by a pair of enormous earplugs that jutted out from his head like two foamy antennae.

In the middle of the conference room (which I suspect has previously hosted tamer gatherings like The Ontario Orthodontics Association Team-Building Weekend), dozens of metal fans nodded rhythmically, or downright headbanged, to the music.

The music was ungodly loud, which is the correct volume for any metal festival. I watched as a band called Maniac, whose impish members appeared to have a cumulative age of 34, unleashed a speedy, shrieky, fantastically over-the-top assault. In my notepad, I jotted "Motorhead meets Alvin and the Chipmunks."

It all seemed so very out-of-place at the HoJo.  But that's the beauty of metal: its raison-d'etre is being out-of-place, counter-culture, against-the-grain, up yours, and stuff like that. If the K-W Metalfest had been held at a dingy, cavernous nightclub bedecked with inverted crosses and black candles, it wouldn't have been so wonderfully contradictory.  My vote for the venue of next year's K-W Metalfest: Chuck E. Cheese's.

Thanks to Phil Walker, who braved the metalfest to get the above pictures of Endast.