Widespread Panic is patriarchal? I own one of their albums and rather like them for the hippie jam band element, I never really thought of them as being Patriarchal.

It's important to dissect the differences between a band and their audience. Sexist assholes exist in every audience -- the famous tampon-flinging episode with L7 was a response to fan "show us your tits" heckling. I can't see anyone claiming L7 is patriarchal. We may attribute bad activity from the bandleaders as siding with the bad elements of the audience, when in fact they are protesting against it.

X had a hit on their hands with "Johnny Hit and Run Paulene" which is an anti-rape song, but like Polly and just about every attempt to write an anti-rape song since, X had to accept that your average fan was a total dipshit and took the song's meaning in the exact OPPOSITE of the way it was intended, and it forced the band to stop playing it when they saw a bunch of dipshits fist-pumping to the song.

I don't doubt that a lot of bands are monstrously sexist... and I definitely don't know enough about the bands to argue with you about the examples you gave, but I guess I just get nervous when people try to say "the fans are like this, so this means the band is like that too."

I know what you mean about the 'lovely and benevolent' authority figures. At a club last week, the 40-something year old manager was not just hitting on my friend (who is 18), but telling her that, basicly, she should marry him for his money. I mean, he didn't even talk to her first, and no prizes for guessing why he chased her (she fits conventional beauty standards down to a T), but he had been perving on various girls for the whole night. I guess he does it every night. Oh yeah, and her mum is a friend of his.

I experience almost the exact opposite of what you describe when I go to female-fronted metal concerts. I've been going to these concerts since I was 14, and I felt pretty safe there. The atmosphere was even better at an Emilie Autumn concert (although, EA is a self-proclaimed feminist and many of her songs are not shy about confronting patriarchy).

Of course, many of the bands I listen to are not very big in the US, which results in playing small venues, and, possibly, less chance of dipshits (to borrow Mighty Ponygirl's word) in the audience?

I wouldn't let sexist dipshits keep you from experiencing music you love. I've never felt unsafe at a show though, if a guy I'm not interested in hits on me I just blow him off.

The part you wrote about the security guards harassing you reminds me of what it's like when I go to clubs and bars.
I can be with a group of my guy friends, but for some reason I'm the only one that ever gets harassed about my age. I can't say that it's because I look younger, because everyone tells my friend Dan that he looks about 12, and I look my age. But nobody ever goes up to Dan. WTF?

I dont recall any Metallica lyrics as being particularly sexist. I am a huge fan and have been to many of their shows and never experienced a problem. Their fans are mostly older and even the rough biker types usually have their partners on their arm as they headbang. In my experience it has been mostly the younger crowd that causes problems... like back in 05 at Summer Sanitarium in Philly when Metallica played with Limp Bizkit... it was Fred Durst who started pulling girls on stage and asking them to take their tops off. Metallica may be money-grubbing these days, but they are not sexists and dont promote that kind of behavior at their shows.

Panic rocks. I too, however, have had some issues with concert scenes, particularly in the jam-band community. Maybe it is not fair to blame the band for it, but I have to believe that they are aware of who their audience is made up of.
I have two specific problems: My partner comes with me to shows. Usually it is a band that he doesn't know much about, but those standing by us (who we do not know) ask him which song was last played, what he thinks the band is going to play next, ect.ect. Of course, he usually has no idea, so when I try to step in and helpfully answer questions, I get ignored or laughed at. It pisses me off that the assumption is that he brought me, and not the other way around. I have noticed an assumption in general that women don't know what is going on at a show and are just there to be seen.
Speaking of which... I don't know if anyone here frequents fan message boards, but I have come across some extremely sexist things on those sites. It is supposed to be a community forum, and I often find it very unwelcoming. For example, a few months ago, someone posted a thread "who is the hottest fan" and was posting women's pictures on the thread, while the women whose pictures were being posted had no idea. When the poster was called out, he said something like "what hot girl doesn't want her picture up?" So I guess, if you are a woman as a show, be prepared to be the subject of voyurism, but only if some guy thinks you're hot enough. This is kind of a rant, but I am feeling so discouraged.I have also seen rants about women going to shows with their other female friends, just "taking up space and being annoying." I just think, did they not pay for their tickets like everyone else? Don't women has as much right as any male at a show?
It at first struck me as strange; one usually equates jambands with hippies and hippies with freedom. It did not take me too long to start feeling unwelcome as a woman who genuinely enjoys the tunes.

I know Metallica does not promote sexist shows. A friend saw Billy Idol last year and women were flashing their boobs. If I am correct, I don't recall Billy Idol promoting sexism. I think its a problem with fans, not the bands. At any show, there are going to be assholes encouraging that behavior. Just attention seekers who need validation. I would be more cautious if I were to attend a show alone. Better to go with a group of people.

Boy, do I ever feel you on this one.

Luckily, most of the shows I go to nowadays are attended by a wonderful and diverse group of fans that more or less respect each other (personal space becomes an issue, of course, when the band begins and everyone tries to shove their way to the front.)

I used to go to a lot of punk shows when I was younger and I was nearly always the only female and certainly the youngest person around, which apparently gave anyone around free reign to grope me or comment on me any way they wished. And the sad thing is that it could've been so much worse. I wasn't around at Woodstock '99 where bands frequently did the "show me your tits" chant and where many women were raped.

The fact of the matter is that rock 'n roll is still a boys club. Think about enormous lack of female rock artists in mainstream culture. People also find it completely acceptable to say things like, "I just don't like female vocalists," as if all female vocalists sing exactly the same way and make the same music. My favorite band, Sleater-Kinney, addresses these issues a lot in their lyrics, one of them being:

I've been crawling up so long on your stairway to heaven
And now I no longer believe that I wanna get in
And will there always be concerts where women are raped?
Watch me make up my mind instead of my face
The #1 must have is that we are safe.

Speaking of Sleater-Kinney, I wore one of their shirts to a concert festival (it says "Show Me Your Riffs" in big letters on the front, a response to the "show me your tits" chant) and made my way into a crowd where a bunch of fans were camping out waiting for Pearl Jam, the headliner. Sleater-Kinney and Eddie Vedder are close friends and they toured together quite a bit, but PJ fans are generally very antagonistic toward S-K for having a loud female singer, etc. When they saw me wearing an S-K shirt they all groaned loudly and talked about how their music was too "dykey." About halfway through the set of whatever band was playing, I was dying of heat exhaustion and took the shirt off (I was wearing a bathing suit top underneath) and all of the guys around me cheered. I left the crowd.

It's just disheartening because no matter how politically active and feminist a band/artist might be (Eddie Vedder is certainly both) the message doesn't always seem to transfer to audiences. S-K are my favorite band not just because their music is incredible, but because their message is very important to me, but my male friend that loves S-K just as much as I do is still a rape apologist and a victim-blamer.