“But from the inside, metal feels nerdy and warmhearted. Metal gigs have always, to me, had the sort of vibe of a classic car meet or a real-ale festival: a place for slightly socially awkward people to find a social group outside the mainstream. The aggressive image it projects is at odds with the rather gentle souls you actually meet doing it.” The beautiful world of heavy metal.

+ I found this to be the case when I attended a metal festival a few years ago. The excursion resulted in this McSweeney’s piece: An Open Letter to the Guy Who Puked Next to Me at the Heavy Metal Festival. A guy next to me explained the joy of metal: “Think about it, Man. Every time that dude with the guitar hits his strings the sound goes through my ears right into my f–king head.”