New Music

Where Do You Draw The Line On Band Shirts?

Mar 19, 2017

4 min read

Band Shirts. We all own at least one, some more so than others (upon last count I had well over 40, most of which I don't wear as much anymore) but where do you stand on acceptable places to wear them out?

We are all aware of the blasphemy that is incurred when you wear the shirt of a band you don't listen to (or even know for that matter), and there's nothing worse than seeing someone wearing your favourite band's shirt/merch and upon asking them what they thought about [insert song, album, band member here], they have no idea and just say they're wearing it because it looked good. That shits fucked and if you're guilty of this please stop.

But where do you stand when it comes to wearing band shirts/merch to shows? Years ago a friend told me about an unofficial list of rules for gigs and for the life of me I can't remember what they were, but the one which always comes to mind was:

"Don't wear the same band's shirt/merch to the gig you're going to" - Wear another band to help give them more publicity.

Now I'm not normally a follower but for some reason that last rule became part of my gig attending nature. I would go out of my way to avoid wearing the same band's clothing I was about to see and wear another as a way to expose them to more potential fans, in a kind of 'word of mouth' way.

But I've been to some of the smallest gigs you can think of and there's always a mass following of fans wearing the same gear as the band they're about to see! Bands are obviously exempt from this rule as we've seen the likes of Metallica, Iron Maiden, Trivium, Megadeth and the Stones all sporting their own merch while on stage and no one bats an eyelid. But where do you stand on the so called 'rule'?

kard slayer