jffffc someone no joke brained himself crowdsurfing and Ghostemane shut the show down!
also, I had this great perch on the back of a banquette near the front but off at the side out of the scrum, and the guy up there next to me had broken a fucking clavicle during the opening act and his only concession was to desist from moshing and take a perch, which respect but omg
intriguing subculture, fellow kids!
possibly a few bugs may need to be worked out.
on the upside, the catastrophe happened right after “Mercury: Retrograde”; no “John Dee” but it might not even have been on the playlist, who knows.
also, I had this great perch on the back of a banquette near the front but off at the side out of the scrum, and the guy up there next to me had broken a fucking clavicle during the opening act and his only concession was to desist from moshing and take a perch, which respect but omg
intriguing subculture, fellow kids!
possibly a few bugs may need to be worked out.
on the upside, the catastrophe happened right after “Mercury: Retrograde”; no “John Dee” but it might not even have been on the playlist, who knows.
OMG!!!!
Clearly, a Ghostemane gig DOES NOT DISAPPOINT! Holy smokes. The kid
with the TBI was OK, I hope. Run wild, young hooligans!
I
hope so too; from my glimpse it was a really tall, built guy, so if
he’d leapt off the stage and just hit the open floor head first it
wouldn’t have been pretty just by virtue of his mass. I gather he was
out cold and probably fairly spectacular amount of blood because G saw
it from the stage and raised the alarm. dude did regain consciousness
after a few tense minutes, but it was very much a matter for lights up,
paramedics in, room cleared, time to go home.
what I don’t understand about moshing/crowdsurfing – other than the basic why would you do that coefficient, which is not low – is that there are a lot of explicit calls from the stage for the standing crowd to back off sideways and open up the center area for action so the people there can move more freely, but surely, if you are planning on hurling your body into a crowd from the stage and depending on the people in it to catch you, you would want that crowd to be denser rather than looser? I mean look what happened.
what I don’t understand about moshing/crowdsurfing – other than the basic why would you do that coefficient, which is not low – is that there are a lot of explicit calls from the stage for the standing crowd to back off sideways and open up the center area for action so the people there can move more freely, but surely, if you are planning on hurling your body into a crowd from the stage and depending on the people in it to catch you, you would want that crowd to be denser rather than looser? I mean look what happened.
You
don’t crowdsurf on the mosh pit. It moves too wildly and violently. You
open up a central space for the mosh pit, and crowdsurf around it
ah.
this seems fraught with unmitigable risks, but okay.
this seems fraught with unmitigable risks, but okay.
Also
heavily depends on what kind of moshing you’ve got going on; typically
at metal shows I’ll see people jump off the sides of the stage to crowd
surf or they’ll surf up from the side or back of the crowd while the pit
is a whirling mass that you don’t want to get sucked into (which is
usually at least a little ways back from the stage). Most punk shows
I’ve been to haven’t been super conducive to crowd surfing because the
pit is more for slamming and pogoing than making a big churning circle
pit, and it’s a wide open central space; if anyone is crowd surfing at
those shows it’s usually the band and the fans will come up and make
sure the band doesn’t hit pavement (so long as they don’t stage dive
from the ceiling, though I’ve seen successful second-story stage dives)
As to the why -
Crowdsurfing: Adrenaline! Trust! Give yourself over to the music and the crowd and let yourself be literally carried by the experience. Also bouncy fun!
Mosh Pits: Socially acceptable reason to get punched in the face in public, cleansing ritual of trial by fire, the closest thing I can do to getting in a fistfight without worrying about being arrested. Also general ambivalence about broken bones.
I also have a “protect the smol” thing about pits, personally, and become self-appointed Pit Mom who jumps in to scoop up people who have fallen or helps get people out if they’re having trouble. And it feels really fucking excellent to help a kid who got kicked in the head and take him around the pit a few times to make sure he’s okay then turn around and knock the kicker into concrete.
Mosh pits are roller derby for people who don’t like team sports.
As to the why -
Crowdsurfing: Adrenaline! Trust! Give yourself over to the music and the crowd and let yourself be literally carried by the experience. Also bouncy fun!
Mosh Pits: Socially acceptable reason to get punched in the face in public, cleansing ritual of trial by fire, the closest thing I can do to getting in a fistfight without worrying about being arrested. Also general ambivalence about broken bones.
I also have a “protect the smol” thing about pits, personally, and become self-appointed Pit Mom who jumps in to scoop up people who have fallen or helps get people out if they’re having trouble. And it feels really fucking excellent to help a kid who got kicked in the head and take him around the pit a few times to make sure he’s okay then turn around and knock the kicker into concrete.
Mosh pits are roller derby for people who don’t like team sports.
this explains a great deal and also nothing at all. say more about this urge to get punched in the face or get in a fistfight?
(this applies to me and me alone, I’m not generalizing this to everyone who goes in a pit)
I have a wide variety of shitpost answers for this but long story short I’m angry and depressed all the time and I don’t always rely on healthy coping mechanisms.
But longer story -
It’s hard to disassociate when you’re getting an elbow thrown at your chest or someone is stepping on your back. I don’t want to have a knock-down-drag-out-someone-is-trying-to-kill-me fight because I’ve been in enough of those to know that they’re not fun playtimes they’re scary as fuck so I’m not going to go out and pick a fight in a bar because that’s a terrible and bad idea, also wrong and immoral, but if someone breaks my toe in the pit I get to feel alive and real and know that it was an accident and that tomorrow it’ll hurt but it wasn’t because someone was serious about hurting me.
That and things are very bad in the world and it’s difficult and exhausting to fix them and you don’t see things come to fruition for years at a time or things move backwards and it feels like your work is meaningless but punching someone in the back of the head when they’re trying to take the panties off a crowd-surfer gets immediate results, as does helping someone who has been hurt, as does pulling people out when they’re scared.
So for me a pit demands that I be very present - even if I’m not picking up people who fall or there are no asshole crowd-killers or creepy gross groping assholes - there is such a physical intensity through the music and the movement and the pain that I get out of my head for a while; there’s also a clarity that I don’t get in a lot of my daily life. I feel unambiguously good about punching that dude in the back of the head in a way that I rarely experience. I feel fantastic about picking up a kid who’d gotten a boot to the head and carrying him to safety. It’s something I can point to and go “this was the right thing to do at the right time and I’m proud of myself for doing it” and that feeling is like a drug, I want it all the time and I never fucking get it because the real world is rarely clear-cut enough to see whether or not what you’re doing makes sense or is the right choice, ESPECIALLY if what you’re doing is something violent because violence is almost never the right choice. (which is why outside of a pit I’m extremely non-violent and so paralyzed by the fear that I’m going to do something wrong that it becomes difficult to do anything)
Like I don’t go in looking to get my nose broken or anything, but I do expect to come out bruised and sweaty and tired and feeling like something real has happened. And I never go in hoping that I get to hit somebody (other than the standard expected bouncing and shoving) or hoping that someone will get hurt so that I can help them, but it’s nice to know if someone does do something awful that they’ve accepted the risk of having their ass kicked by virtue of going in the pit in the first place and it’s nice to know that I’m the kind of person who helps people who get hurt even if it’s difficult or dangerous to help them.
—————————————————–
In a somewhat more generalized way there has been some discussion around the question “do young men participate in moshing/mma/xyz violent subcultural activity because we no longer have coming of age rituals in countries where moshing is a thing and/or because it’s one of the few ways to have physical contact with people who aren’t romantic partners or family and not be accused of homosexuality?” and I think there’s at least some kernel of truth in that sort of exploration. I think that there are genuinely helpful and cathartic reasons that people go in the pit that can be extremely healthy and are actually a great way to form bonds in an atomized society (I know lots of people who have made really good friends or solidified friendships by sweatily bouncing off each other and offering hands up and comparing bruises over a beer after the fact)
However I think that some people do it because it *is* a way that they can be violent and hurt people largely without repercussions - I think that explains crowd-killing (which I guess I should define - either it’s randomly punching and kicking unsuspecting people in/around the pit in a way that is much more targeted than standard hardcore dancing or general shoving and slamming; OR it’s dragging people into the pit who don’t want to be in the pit; OR, sometimes, if they’re a real fucking asshole, it’s stage diving feet first and kicking the people who would otherwise catch you, the kind of thing only a giant bag of smashed turds would do)
I have a wide variety of shitpost answers for this but long story short I’m angry and depressed all the time and I don’t always rely on healthy coping mechanisms.
But longer story -
It’s hard to disassociate when you’re getting an elbow thrown at your chest or someone is stepping on your back. I don’t want to have a knock-down-drag-out-someone-is-trying-to-kill-me fight because I’ve been in enough of those to know that they’re not fun playtimes they’re scary as fuck so I’m not going to go out and pick a fight in a bar because that’s a terrible and bad idea, also wrong and immoral, but if someone breaks my toe in the pit I get to feel alive and real and know that it was an accident and that tomorrow it’ll hurt but it wasn’t because someone was serious about hurting me.
That and things are very bad in the world and it’s difficult and exhausting to fix them and you don’t see things come to fruition for years at a time or things move backwards and it feels like your work is meaningless but punching someone in the back of the head when they’re trying to take the panties off a crowd-surfer gets immediate results, as does helping someone who has been hurt, as does pulling people out when they’re scared.
So for me a pit demands that I be very present - even if I’m not picking up people who fall or there are no asshole crowd-killers or creepy gross groping assholes - there is such a physical intensity through the music and the movement and the pain that I get out of my head for a while; there’s also a clarity that I don’t get in a lot of my daily life. I feel unambiguously good about punching that dude in the back of the head in a way that I rarely experience. I feel fantastic about picking up a kid who’d gotten a boot to the head and carrying him to safety. It’s something I can point to and go “this was the right thing to do at the right time and I’m proud of myself for doing it” and that feeling is like a drug, I want it all the time and I never fucking get it because the real world is rarely clear-cut enough to see whether or not what you’re doing makes sense or is the right choice, ESPECIALLY if what you’re doing is something violent because violence is almost never the right choice. (which is why outside of a pit I’m extremely non-violent and so paralyzed by the fear that I’m going to do something wrong that it becomes difficult to do anything)
Like I don’t go in looking to get my nose broken or anything, but I do expect to come out bruised and sweaty and tired and feeling like something real has happened. And I never go in hoping that I get to hit somebody (other than the standard expected bouncing and shoving) or hoping that someone will get hurt so that I can help them, but it’s nice to know if someone does do something awful that they’ve accepted the risk of having their ass kicked by virtue of going in the pit in the first place and it’s nice to know that I’m the kind of person who helps people who get hurt even if it’s difficult or dangerous to help them.
—————————————————–
In a somewhat more generalized way there has been some discussion around the question “do young men participate in moshing/mma/xyz violent subcultural activity because we no longer have coming of age rituals in countries where moshing is a thing and/or because it’s one of the few ways to have physical contact with people who aren’t romantic partners or family and not be accused of homosexuality?” and I think there’s at least some kernel of truth in that sort of exploration. I think that there are genuinely helpful and cathartic reasons that people go in the pit that can be extremely healthy and are actually a great way to form bonds in an atomized society (I know lots of people who have made really good friends or solidified friendships by sweatily bouncing off each other and offering hands up and comparing bruises over a beer after the fact)
However I think that some people do it because it *is* a way that they can be violent and hurt people largely without repercussions - I think that explains crowd-killing (which I guess I should define - either it’s randomly punching and kicking unsuspecting people in/around the pit in a way that is much more targeted than standard hardcore dancing or general shoving and slamming; OR it’s dragging people into the pit who don’t want to be in the pit; OR, sometimes, if they’re a real fucking asshole, it’s stage diving feet first and kicking the people who would otherwise catch you, the kind of thing only a giant bag of smashed turds would do)
You
know I feel like I should also clarify and add: I deal with pretty
significant anxiety and emotional hyperarousal and extremely high threat
sensitivity. All of this shit gets turned off when dealing with the
immediacy of a hundred people stomping and punching the air and shoving
each other around and it is peaceful and soothing for me the way that I
imagine sensory deprivation tanks or massages or meditation are for
other people.
thank you for going into it! it makes far more sense now and it actually is important?
like, it still doesn’t take me in that way, even in theory and applying empathy etc, but I know that feeling of wanting forcible proof of one’s presence in the world right now right here. insofar as I’ve articulated it to myself before, it operationalizes and plays out in different ways and contexts for me, but, I get it.
more broadly: this now seems like a really really heightened version of my urge to see energy-intense music live at all in the first place. because you know what, that makes just as little sense on paper. it’s an ultra-crowded, ultra-overstimulating, ultra-noisy situation and happens in the middle of the goddamn night after hours of tedious uncomfortable waiting around on foot in said crowd and these are all extremely not things that I enjoy as a rule. why the hell is that appealing? and, I mean, I know why: dionysian ekstasis, the anti-dissociation thing, etc. so, fine.
possibly I’m introverted enough that being at a live show is already enough of a hyperstimulus/anti-dissociative/ecstasy catalyst for me; if I were starting out with a more engageable temperament in the first place it might take much more input to deliver adequate hyperstimulus. that idea actually makes me curious, tbh, but not to the point I’m gonna go in a mosh pit and get myself fucked up, it’s above my current fleshsuit’s pay grade.
like, it still doesn’t take me in that way, even in theory and applying empathy etc, but I know that feeling of wanting forcible proof of one’s presence in the world right now right here. insofar as I’ve articulated it to myself before, it operationalizes and plays out in different ways and contexts for me, but, I get it.
more broadly: this now seems like a really really heightened version of my urge to see energy-intense music live at all in the first place. because you know what, that makes just as little sense on paper. it’s an ultra-crowded, ultra-overstimulating, ultra-noisy situation and happens in the middle of the goddamn night after hours of tedious uncomfortable waiting around on foot in said crowd and these are all extremely not things that I enjoy as a rule. why the hell is that appealing? and, I mean, I know why: dionysian ekstasis, the anti-dissociation thing, etc. so, fine.
possibly I’m introverted enough that being at a live show is already enough of a hyperstimulus/anti-dissociative/ecstasy catalyst for me; if I were starting out with a more engageable temperament in the first place it might take much more input to deliver adequate hyperstimulus. that idea actually makes me curious, tbh, but not to the point I’m gonna go in a mosh pit and get myself fucked up, it’s above my current fleshsuit’s pay grade.
If you’re interested in a more intense experience but don’t want to try an actual pit (which I can’t blame you for) getting into more extreme or heavier music can help, or changing what kind of venue you’re going to. The floor in front of the stage at an outdoor metal festival feels very different than the floor in front of the stage at a 1000 capacity theater.
If you can see yourself getting into sludge there’s more of a group slow-mo headbanging thing that’s pretty awesome and the music is *heavy*, like palpably weighty if you’re standing near the stacks.
You might also be interested in checking out industrial shows/ clubs/ dance nights because stompy dancing is what goths do instead of moshing; you get the loud/cathartic experience of being around heavy music and bouncing and stomping in time with something but it’s exceedingly rare to see a real pit. (my favorite currently active industrial group is Ivardensphere, if you get a chance to see them live it’s a great show)
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