Shirt Stains: Ozzfest Main Stage
We’re gunna take you back to the past/To laugh at Ozzfest headliners’ shirts that suck ass.
For about a 10 year period, Ozzfest was the premier touring heavy metal festival. Their combination of well-established headliners and up-and-coming 2nd stage acts was a difficult one to beat. Fans looked forward to that year’s release of the lineup. Several other touring fests came and went during Ozzfest’s reign. Ultimately, Ozzfest was undone primarily due to economic reasons. Everything costs moolah and even when you charge labels to get their unknown bands like Gizmachi or Magna-Fi thousands of dollars to play, it’s not enough. The fest has sprung up from time to time as stand-alone events, most recently the Ozzfest Meets Knotfest. Let’s remember the fest by pointing and laughing at questionable shirts from some of their headliners and mainstagers.
Pantera – 5 Minutes To Drilling Time
The OGs of meathead metal Pantera were perfect for the early days of Ozzfest. Their in-your-face attitude worked well with the angsty and anger-ridden crowds that attended the festival, tank tops, Kikwears jeans and all. It’s only appropriate that a shirt for their song “5 Minutes Alone” inspired by their fans assaulting someone in the crowd, would make it on to Shirt Stains.
This artwork, if you want to call it that, is from the 5 Minutes Alone single. Why is there a construction working drilling into Pantera’s name the artwork for this song? I don’t know and I’m pretty confident Phil Anselmo et al. don’t know either. Drilling stuff is metal? Getting Black Lung is metal? Don’t try to come up with an answer. We’ve already collectively put more thought into this than they did. How many pulls were gotten with this shirt? I hope it was less than whatever they were expecting. This shirt is a non-sequitur. To be fair, it still makes more sense than saying you shouted “White Power” because you were drinking white wine.
Korn – *Jonathan Davis gorilla noises*
This is bad for so, so many reasons. I don’t even remember where I came across this affront to all that is good and holy. This shirt wasn’t designed, it was spewed forth from the deepest, darkest recesses of the human mind. No man nor create could have concocted such a blasphemous shirt. Only books made out of human skin even hint at such a thing of poor, unadulterated evil such as this. Just by knowing this shirt exists, it’s already too late. Get your affairs in order for your time is nigh.
I think (hope) that this is just the laziest bootleg of all time. Literally everything about it is awful. The poorly photoshopped band photo next to the poorly photoshopped photo of Jonathan Davis on the back. Those are just pasted on top of a shirt that may or may not be made out of an old end table judging by the graininess. The front design may in fact be from a real Korn shirt, which is sad in it’s own way. Does the skull have hair or did it just fall into a vat of gravy? And why is it poking through the “o” in Korn? Is that supposed to be sexual? If so, I’m going to have to report this shirt to HR. If not for the sexual harassment, then for the horribleness of this shirt’s sleeves. Why aren’t they just blank? Do we deserve punishment from all sides, like some sort of ocular iron maiden torture device? It hurts. It hurts so bad.
Papa Roach – She Shirts Me Not
Before Papa Roach became a butt rock band, they were a butt nu-metal band. The angst still remains, but they traded in their raps for radio-friendly hooks and are still around to this day. Think of the myriad of bands from this era whose greatest moment was playing 2nd stage on Ozzfest. All of them would kill for what Papa Roach has achieved. Good for them for being able to change their sound and have some radio hits long after they should have faded into obscurity. Shame on them for making this shirt, though.
Papa Roach really tried to play up the roach imagery during this time, which is weird, because the band’s name was in reference to vocalist Jacoby Shaddix’s (then known as Coby Dick because the 90’s were an interesting time) step-grandfather, Howard Roatch. When life hands you roaches, you make roach-a-nade, which is the drinkable version of this shirt. While does it have to be 50 shades of brown? To serve as a warning for anyone that may want to cut their life in to pieces? I try to avoid making shit references when a band’s shirt is brown, but with all the roaches and the giant bug wearing a gas mask, I’m inclined to believe that this is in fact a t-shirt promoting doo-doo feces. How appropriate.
System Of A Down – Toxishitty
I’m really not sure what System Of A Down were going for with this shirt. I know the band is all about messaging, but what message is this supposed to be? Kidnapping is bad? Good? Blue is a pretty color? The Crazies was a good movie? We have lots of room to fill up on this shirt so we might as well use 85% of it? Is it one of the band members? Did Shavo get into the Khlav Khalash again?
The graffiti on the wall behind our poor victim makes things even more confusing. “Fuck That Shit.” Fuck what shit? Give me a clue. Are we being literal? Figurative? Whom does the shit belong to? Whom is doing the fucking? “Bries SOAD Suck!” Did someone have a struck when putting this design together? Why would someone want a System Of A Down shirt that promotes and denigrates the band? I thought Primus was the only band that wanted their fans to say that they sucked. Serj Tankian works in mysterious ways, my friends.
Biohazard – Tales From The Dorkside
You better believe that this shirt features the heads of Biohazard pasted on top of wrestlers’ bodies. I recognize Sid Vicious, one of The Rockers, and Bret Hart. Not sure about the other one in the middle. Any of my wrestling experts want to take a guess in the comments? The only thing funnier than putting their goofy faces onto the wrestlers’ bodies is that they also put the Biohazard symbol on them too. Bravo, guys. Bra-fucking-vo.
