As a budding artist, breaking through the door is never the greatest feeling in the world. It takes a lot of effort to win over a crowd in the short time they have onstage in the beginning, especially for performers who are not used to receiving wild applause from the audience for simply sneezing in their direction. Despite not being the biggest band, Alice in Chains faced an even steeper challenge due to their doomed tour with thrash metal legends.
To start with, Alice in Chains came perilously close to being a trendsetter even before they gained notoriety as grunge icons. Since debuting amidst Guns N’ Roses’ era, they engaged in numerous early career photo shoots. They put on their best rootsy rock attire for these occasions. They even adopted Slash and Axl Rose’s slightly glitzy cowboy boots and pose.
Even though Layne Staley was once a member of the glam band Sleaze, their combined sound was far darker. A strange melancholy, entirely apart from Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, permeated the entire group. They fit somewhere between classic hard rock and heavy metal in the vein of Black Sabbath. For that reason, Slayer and Megadeth chose to take a chance on them for the Clash of the Titans tour.
The other members of the “Big 4” of thrash started their joint tour, with Alice in Chains opening the show. Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer concluded it. Metallica, the icons of thrash, were now big enough to start headlining their shows. They might never have given in to a chance on them when booking the Clash of the Titans tour.
Nobody wanted to hear these slow songs with a tempo slower than Kerry King’s intense tremolo picking. This was because the crowd was mostly just there to hear thrash. Drummer Sean Kinney discussed their struggles during the show when questioned about the Metal Evolution tour. He stated, “We are one of those bands that has the luxury of playing with anyone.” We simply wanted to play, so that’s what we did. And the crowd was unruly. We would simply respond with more of the same when they threw crap at us.
Although it makes sense that no musician would want to perform ever again after being pelted, Scott Ian of Anthrax showed them a lot of respect for bearing it head-on. He said, “Those dudes got pelted with more shit than I’ve ever seen a band get pelted with.” Never once did they give up on throwing beer at Alice in Chains; instead, they kept buying more and throwing it at her.
Even though the thrash crowd didn’t want to change, many of those hecklers most likely stopped being fans of Alice in Chains. This shift occurred once the grunge explosion occurred. Although not everyone enjoyed the somber introspection of a band like Nirvana, listening to a song like “Man in the Box” with its sludgy guitar sound was grunge rock on metal’s terms. The demonic riff of “We Die Young” also exemplified this fusion.
So, anyone trying to heckle a support band should take note of this. A band can transform from being an opening act to one of the biggest names in music with just a few wise choices and some good songs. Even though initially they might not seem like they’re going anywhere.
