You’ve got to hand it to Metallica. In twenty-plus years together they’ve endured the death of one bassist, the departure of another, a few near-breakups, alcoholism, drug addiction, and at least two cycles of “the death of rock and roll” — the New Kids on the Block era and the N’Sync era.

Add to that list of woes their creative collapse of the late 1990s — which produced a series of unlistenable albums; Loaded, Reloaded and S&M, an ill-conceived and poorly executed collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (WTF?) — the Napster battles of 2000, and perhaps most frequently, the misfortune of sharing the stage with a series of inexperienced, overhyped and under-talented bands, whose antics always seem to wreck the tour.

(The classic example of this occurred during the Toronto date of the Metallica/Guns N’Roses/Faith No More tour of 1994, when guitarist and lead singer James Hetfeld miscalculated the pyrotechnics, stepped into a ten-foot tall jet of flame, and had to be rushed to the ER, where he was hospitalized with second and third degree burns.

Meanwhile, Guns N’ Roses front man Axl Rose antagonized the already rowdy and impatient crowd before — complaining of terrible sound — storming off of the stage twenty minutes into their two-hour set. Downtown Toronto was set ablaze during the ensuing riot, and both Metallica and Guns N’ Roses were banned from Toronto.)

Hetfeld and Company fell victim to the tourmate curse again in Chicago on Sunday, when opener Limp Bizkit’s front man Fred Durst threw a temper tantrum and fled the stage twenty minutes into their hour-long set, which included “a sarcastic, gay-bashing cover of George Michael’s “Faith” with potty-mouth lyrics that would embarrass a fourth-grader“.

I’m not at all surprised that Fred Durst acted like an idiot, as he is mostly brain-dead on even his best days, but he should take a few minutes out of his busy schedule of stuff-breaking and nookie-getting to realize that no one cares any longer about his career or band. No one cares that he may or may not have slept with Christina Aguilera (and judging from her recent press photos, I may be the only man in America who hasn’t slept with her), no one cares about his psedo-rap posturing and no one cares about his new album.

What also fails to surprise me, and indeed should fail to surprise anyone familiar with the band, is that Fred’s first response to heckling was to launch into a obscenity-strewn tantrum complete with homophobic slurs.While he is hardly the first testosterone-addled ex-jock who could use a lesson in Michael Stipean sensitivity, he is the poster-boy for that musical abomination known as rap-rock and for that reason alone — and it pains me to say this — his actions matter.

It is unfortunate that a man so racially inclusive — his collaborations with the Wu Tang Clan’s Method Man almost make me believe that he has heard positive-punk pioneers 7 Seconds’ Walk Together, Rock Together — seems to have never heard that other 7 Seconds ode to equality, the anti-homophobic Regress, No Way. Fred Durst displays a finely-tuned meter of prejudice, acutely aware of the fact that while racial minorities are off limits (can you imagine the uproar if he’d screamed “fucking niggers” instead of “fucking faggots”) sexual minorities are still fair game. Even worse, I’m sure he’ll suffer no repercussions. Limp Bizkit fans — the few that remain — will point to this episode as proof-positive that Fred is “hardcore” (since when is throwing a tantrum hardcore?) and this will only enforce his bad-boy image.

I can only hope that his tantrum in Chicago was just that, a temper tantrum and the desperate act of a man who sees his star fading, who means to revive it by any means necessary. Maybe, with a little luck, by the time Metallica releases their next album, we will be able to find Limp Bizkit albums in their rightful place — the cutout bin, filed next Milli Vanilli.