Friday, September 17, 2021
Hetfield Reacts to Va. Tech's Seismographic 'Sandman' Moment
loudwire.com: College football fans can be a thunderous bunch, especially while riled up by the right song, and Virginia Tech's usage of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" as their football entry theme has become one of the sport's greatest musical traditions. In fact, the response at this year's home opener was so intense that it registered on a seismograph in the area and made headlines across the country.
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Oh, the power of music! It makes us angry, joyful, depressed, but it is especially good at getting us on our feet. It’s crazy to just see that many people get riled up, but to have so much excitement in one place where it literally reads on seismic measurements? I can’t even imagine being James Hetfield in this situation, knowing the amount of collective emotional reactions that people have to your music. It’s just awesome! This story strikes at a deeper meaning though. Why do we as artists create our art? Why specifically, as musicians and sound designers, do we create in the medium that we do. It’s because of this. Our art influences the psyche and strikes at deep methods within the brain that our scientists have yet to grasp. Music not only makes us emotional as individuals, but also completely alters a crowd dynamic, just like Enter Sandman did here. Truly phenomenal.
This has to be one of the most absurd things I have ever heard. What is essentially a human powered earthquake – the collective, repetitive, rhythmic bouncing of game patrons combined in force to cause a measurable reading on a seismograph. This goes to show the power of music – if all the game attendees were jumping around at random, there may have been some detectable seismic activity. That being said, with the music blasting, the collective adrenaline pumping, and all the attendees going crazy to the beat of the song, the collective pressure of each jump, all however many thousand people, combines to make a much stronger pressure wave into the ground, which would be much more evident on a seismograph. In any case, just because it was detectable on a seismograph does not necessarily guarantee that it could be felt by a passerby. It makes me wonder, could the jumping be felt in the ground at all outside the stadium? And, if so, how far away from the stadium could this jumping be felt my a person and not a precise machine designed to detect the smallest movements of the ground?
Wow. Im torn between laughing at the absolute absurdity that is college football and how pumped up people get for it and being kind of admiringly awed at the unity that creating an actual seismic event represents. People go to clubs and music festivals looking for that feeling of being part of a collective all feeling the same thing and moving together, but of all things, it was a college football game playing Metallica that got everyone so in sync that they literally shook the ground. I.... don't care for football, and I think often that sports gets weirdly culty and has some really weird nationalism-but-on-a-smaller-scale vibes that are pretty big turnoffs, but reading this article has me thinking that maybe there's some real value that I haven't considered. It definitely still feels weird, and community isn't always a good thing, especially when paired with an us-versus-them mindset, but this does feel mostly like just an 'us' moment: a lot of people sharing an experience and feeling something together. And then making an earthquake.
More football content please! :) I love this!!!! My brother goes to Virginia tech and sent me this video after this happened. My brother used to work on sound for our theater department at my high school. He wasn’t at that game, he isn’t a big football fan (I am though), but he could hear it from on campus. I don’t know Carnegie Melon football will be setting on seismographs anytime soon… but we are working on getting new technology in the football department. I am working with the team on a Mic’d up series and see what other fun projects we can start rolling out to get some more excitement for our team. Go to games and support the athletics department! If anyone is ever looking for fun projects outside of theater, or are looking to meet new people there are some fun opportunities around campus and we are always looking for help.
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