The Sweetest Plum
Metal fans love merch. Go to any metal show and most (like 90%) of the crowd are wearing black t-shirts dripping with metal band logos. This works out great for the bands too, since when they tour they can sell a tour shirt at $40 a pop to half the crowd and make lots more cash. Krusty said it best in Krusty Gets Kancelled:
Krusty: I don’t know how to thank you kids.
Bart: That’s all right, Krusty.
Lisa: We’re getting fifty percent of the T-shirt sales.
Krusty: The T-shirt sales! That’s the sweetest plum!
So it’s hard to know what a band is thinking when they run out of shirts to sell at a show. This happened to me a couple of times last year, at both Kreator and Testament. At Kreator’s Gaelic Club show, I missed out on a tour shirt but still managed to get one with the cover art for Pleasure To Kill. At Testament’s Manning bar show, by the time we turned up during the first support act, there was no more Testament merch left for sale whatsoever. I didn’t see anyone wearing a tour shirt either, so the band must not have turned up with very many.
Luckily I got something even better than merch at Testament: a pick straight from the fingers of the legendary Alex Skolnick himself. Sweet!
