Disabled Metallica Fan’s Bad Experience at Show Goes Viral

Perhaps you, like potentially millions of people the world over, livestreamed the final show of Metallica’s North American tour earlier this week. Tack that number on to some twenty or thirty thousand inside the stadium, and that’s a fuckton of people who got to see Metallica perform that night.

One person who didn’t: a physically disabled fan named Derrick Jones whose view from inside the stadium — in wheelchair accessible seating — was blocked by some drunk concertgoers in front of him who refused to sit down.

Jones had traveled seven hours to see the show and was understandably miffed, so he decided to share his experience on Reddit in a post which has since gone viral. An usher Jones spoke to allegedly did not take any action to help the situation, but The Commonwealth Stadium has since issued an apology statement pledging to look into the matter.

Jones ended up having an OK time anyway, noting “The sound was absolutely on point and sounded phenomenal. The energy in that building was absolutely unreal.”

The stadium has raised platforms for wheelchair accessible seating elsewhere in the building, so it’s unclear why Jones’ area didn’t.

Metallica have a long history of being very, very cool to fans who have been inconvenienced — like that Metallica tribute band their lawyers sued without their knowledge — so it’s possible this story gets a happy ending. Let’s hope!

My view of Metallica from the handicapped section at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton. 7 hour drive for this ????
byu/doctajones1989 inmildlyinfuriating

[via The PRP]