In which I pit "indie" concerts

Okay, so I have been going to concerts at House of Blues for several years now. Recently, they were bought out by Clear Channel, and have been advertising a lot of their concerts with the “alternative” stations they own in town. Now, this is not a bad thing, except for the free tickets they give away.

Free tickets that go to wannabe, drunken, inexperienced teenage punks. Who ruin it for the rest of us concert-goers by moshing at inappropriate times (between sets! :eek: ), pushing crowds together almost causing asphyxiation, and worst of all, causing my head to be placed between the foot of a crowd-surfer and the head of another concert-goer at LEAST TWICE A CONCERT! I am surprised I don’t come out of the show with fucking bruises.

Now, the only shows that draw this sort of crowd are the punk-lite/emo/indie/whatever you want to call it genre, for example, Saves the Day, Something Corporate, there was even bad moshing at Dashboard Confessional! :eek: This is my favorite genre for concerts, as it is a good mix of punk energy and pop emotion.

I like pop concerts too, for instance Heart did the best song I ever heard in concert, a cover of Battle of Evermore. And I like harder-core punk shows too. In fact, at the very same House of Blues I saw Dropkick Murphys and Bad Religion.

And guess what? I experience MUCH LESS crowd-related violence at straight-up punk shows that I do at wannabe punk indie shows! They even look out for you if you fall down in a mosh pit.

So fuck you, freeloading wannabe punks. You are forcing me to miss Saves the Day this year due to concert violence :mad::mad::mad:.

unless someone wants to point me to a cheap helmet. I’m not kidding.

My kid got his leg busted at a metal band mosh pit thing. I’m very choosy about who and where I get my music from anymore. But I’m a geezer.

I was at a Reverend Horton Heat show a few years back at Bogart’s in Cincinnati. I was standing behind the people who were “on the rail”, and there was a sizable mosh pit that formed right behind me. I was essentially part of the pit’s wall, with bodies slamming into me like crazy.

At one point I lost my balance and was about to fall backwards, so I reached forward (between two people), grabbed the rail and tried to push myself up. The guy in front of me, clearly possessive of his spot on the rail, casually pried my fingers up, threw my hand back, and elbowed me right into the pit.

I managed not to fall back into the pit, which could have been bad news (though this was a relatively courteous mosh pit). The guy never even looked back at me. I settled up behind the asswipe, placing the back of my wrist on my sternum so that my elbow protruded to his kidney, and let the moshers continue to slam me into him.

Later, he did some similarly callous shoving to a 120-pound girl who was trying to similarly regain her balance. Said girl turned out to have a very large boyfriend. When the boyfriend walked up to the asshole and gave him a stare, he didn’t back down–he started giving shit to the boyfriend. Boyfriend drags him off by his shirt, and that’s the last I saw of the asshole.

No point, really, except that there are assholes everywhere.

Dr. J

Send them over to a Hatebreed show, that’ll learn 'em quick.

A couple of years ago I went to see Nevermore at a tiny, dirty little club called Jaxx in Springfield, VA. I went with my two brothers, and all three of us brought a whole rack of people. One guy who tagged along came to be known as Crazy Dave, for reasons which will become apparent in a minute. It’s important to know that he was apparently a friend of a friend of a friend. Nobody knows who invited him.

Anyway, as is typical at a metal show, a couple mosh pits started during the heavier songs, but always stopped when the band did a ballad. During one of these ballads, Crazy Dave decided to start a mosh pit. He did this in pretty much the standard way: he started bumping into people, going back and forth, opening up an area of the floor.

Nobody joined in since it was a ballad, but that didn’t stop Crazy Dave. He started running full speed into people on the wall of the pit. A few times he was running into girls who were no more than 120 pounds, who had no business being in a mosh pit, and they knew this. After he knocked a few tiny little things to the ground, I had to tackle him, pull his arms behind him as hard as possible, and yell in his ear, “If they wanted to mosh, they’d be hitting you! Stop it right now, asshole!” He then proceeded to go hit on the club owner’s wife.

Yeah, there sure are a lot of assholes at good concerts.

Okay, I know this is going to magnify my geezerosity to the 10th power, but exactly what is the purpose of a mosh pit? What is the difference between a “good” one and a “bad” one? Do people get hurt regularly, or is it rare? Does anyone ever get arrested for playing too rough? Why do they want to hurt each other?

I dunno. It’s just fun. The only people I’ve seen get hurt are people who had no business being in a mosh pit in the first place (like a 90 pound teenage girl).

Because it’s fun. In a good pit, a guy can knock the shit out of you and then he’ll pick you back up, pat you on the back, and make sure you’re ok. In a bad pit, knives come out and people get seriously hurt. At the ones I’ve been in, bumps and bruises have probably been the worst injuries. Not that I know of. Because being in the pit can be fun. I used to enjoy it.

::raises hand::

I know! I know!

See, the mosh pit is to some degree about anarchy and rebellion, but it’s also about organized chaos. This little ephiphany came to me at a show once (Was it Tool? Helmet? The Ramones? Can’t remember…) as I, a little tiny thing, stood in the balcony far above the pit, watching the shenanigans. This was a smallish club in Ft. Liquordale in the mid-90’s. People watched out for each other, no moshing during ballads (Although I don’t recall any of the bands I saw there actually performing a ballad), and it didn’t matter what band was playing – people took care of each other. Every now and then some newbie would try to stage dive without looking first to make sure people were paying attention and would catch him. I saw some of those people crash to the concrete floor head first. I saw some tiny girls in tank tops have their clothing ripped off while trying to surf the pit (probably not a good idea). But other than that, people kind of took care of each other.

And now, my pointless anecdote:

I was at my first Tool show and already falling madly in love with this band. This was before the Aenima album came out. About halfway through the show, right in the middle of a song, the singer stopped singing and stopped the band. He gazed down into the pit…

and bleated like a sheep.

And everyone in the pit bleated back at him.

Maynard bleated again.

And the pit bleated back.

He bleated a third time.

And the pit bleated back.

He looked out over the club and said, “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” And the band blasted back into the song full throttle.

Maybe there is a point: while the kids, being what they are, may believe it’s all about anarchy and rebellion, they are still conforming to what all the other rebellious kids are doing.

“I want to be an individual. Just like all the other individuals, just like me.” – King Missle.

Being aware of the almost 65% market ownership that Clear Channel has in the US FM Rock Station demographic, and then to read the word “alternative” in the same sentence is something that just makes me laugh my head off.

Rock concerts (and the promotion of therein) have become more of the same formulaic, fast food crap I see in most things regarding corporatised entertainment these days.

Somehow, Clear Channel have managed to turn going to a concert into McDonalds it would seem.

That’s pretty much where I’d fall in. And down.

GMRyujin said,

I just don’t understand. Why would you want to get the shit kicked out of you for no reason, by a perfect stranger, while listening to music? I just don’t get it. :confused:

Lord Ashtar:

Yeah, quite a few people do that too…that sucks! I didn’t mention it in my post because I thought someone would come in and say “what made you the mosh czar and let you dictate what other people should and should not mosh to?” But ballads are right out IMO.

But actually, when people start pushing on me to clear space in a ballad, I just turn around and tell them to cool it non-verbally (by making a “pat down” motion with both my hands), and it usually works. But they should be smart enough not to do it.

Boo Boo:

Ayup. It’s frustrating that they own the only medium-sized venue that I know of in Orlando (besides the Hard Rock, which only has about 1/4 the number of concerts the HoB does.)

It’s even more frustrating that even though they sponsor, and thus ruin, my concerts, they don’t even have the courtesy to play the freakin bands on the radio!!! Of all the concerts they’ve sponsored, I think I’ve heard about 10 minutes total from sponsored bands…EVER. Of course, one reason is that I no longer listen to commercial radio, so go fig, but even when I did that still holds.

Because we’re young and stupid, presumably.

I knew I was out of my teens when getting slammed around by complete strangers didn’t hold the appeal of sitting in a nice, comfortable seat.

Because we’re young and stupid, presumably. It was fun.

I knew I was out of my teens when getting slammed around by complete strangers couldn’t beat the appeal of sitting in a nice, comfortable seat.

A group of my friends are at a Save Ferris concert back when they were still Save Ferris. It’s a tiny venue in Pomona called the Glasshouse. Me and my shortish friend are hanging in the back for safety and breathing room. My other 4’8", 93 lb. friend is being protected by my bf at the rail, just under Mo’s sweet and sweating cleavage. Between us is the typical Save Ferris pit, which is a little on the rough side for the ska scene, IMO. (anybody see them at the KROQ show at the Santa Anita Race Track? By the end of it, I was ready to knock out every single motherfucker I saw that threw a fucking bottle, I swear…)

A body surfer goes through the crowd. My little friend up front gets kicked in the head, hard. Heat exhaustion and dehydration sweep over her once the concussion sets in and she goes into shock, right there in the middle of the concert.

Thank god my bf was an EMT, because he kept her breathing. We ended up leaving the concert early and taking her to ER, because she kept wanting to fall asleep (BAD when you have a head injury!). And she wasn’t even in the fucking pit!

Yeah, that was a night to remember!

A proper pit, at least the good ones in the old days had a sort of ebb and flow that if followed would keep you out of harms way. Something like you would be in time with the nut in front of you swinging his arms, and every downbeat you would be ducking when his fist came around. Some sort of crazy kinetic 3 stooges act where people never made serious contact.

Probably doesn’t make much sense, but it’s the damn truth.

Dogzilla, that’s fucking hysterical.

I suppose that moshpits came about because people realized that you really can’t dance to hard rock and hard rock fans can’t dance very well, so they started jumping and bumping. At the smaller venues with the smaller bands, I think the pit is sort of an extension of the community being fostered through music. Physical contact building trust and whatnot. The point isn’t to get the shit kicked out of you; it’s to have fun. Sometimes the two events intersect.
Good pits are conscientious, and the bands make sure they stay that way. Bad pits feature a guy that’s 6’6", 268 lbs. doing ‘the windmill’. There is the occasional pit where actual dancing occurs, but this occurs mainly at ska shows with what we call the ‘skank pit.’

Wow.

Something Corporate. Indie. Oh my fucking god.

Seriously though, this is what you call indie? I went to a concert for British Sea Power two nights ago. The band themselves went absolutely insane, but nobody got hurt or shoved or anything. Much fun and enjoyment was had by all simply through jumping up and down and being rediculously bad dancers. (Or mayve that was just me) It was a lot of fun. Indie.

Something Corporate? Again, not indie. Before someone starts a thread in the pit against indie music/concerts/snobs/ etc., let’s get a little idea of what indie is, 'mkay.

Have you never encountered quotation marks before? Or are you so desperate to proclaim your independence that you choose to ignore them?