Yeah, what part of “Whatever you want to call it” genre do you not understand? No matter what you pick, there’s gonna be someone unhappy with the categorization.
That it was, my friend. Witnessing that made me adore Tool forever. You can’t say anything ugly about 'em in my presence or I’ll just think you’re another one of the flock!
Haha, I think sitting in a nice comfortable seat is the last place I’d be at a metal or punk show. If you don’t like moving to the music and being a part of the crowd, maybe you’re better off at a James Taylor concert.
I don’t mosh, but I certainly don’t sit in my seat at a good show.
It may be helpful for some folks to understand what moshing is.
There are basically three types that occur.
In the first type, participants hold their arms close in to their body, and bounce off each other. This takes on a free form movement where people ricochet off each others upper bodies and the crowd at the edge of the pit.
In the second type, people swing their arms in addition to ricocheting off each other. Contact above the shoulders is incidental, since the goal is to push off each other even as others are bumping into you.
In the third type, you’re really closer to engaging in a form of upper body brawling, where you actively try to clutch and sling others off into other directions and physical blows may occur, though usually with forearms and elbows or the back of the arm. Any serious fighting is difficult because of the unrelenting movement of people in the pit.
The issue from a crowd control perspective is that there tends to be different people engaging in different types of moshing all in the same pit. Therefore, the floor bouncers will usually grab the most aggressive types and remove them from the pit in order to “cool down” (or be ejected if the offense is serious enough).
Most of the injuries that occur are bruises and minor abrasions and the occaisional twisted ankle or black eye/split lip. Moshers learn that appropriate clothing (t-shirts with sweat shirts underneath, jeans or other loose pants, a knit cap, and heavy boots) helps mitigate injuries.
This is not all mosh pits in all cases, of course. Some are barely controlled riots. If a pit is allowed to get that far out of hand the fault usually lies either with the venue operator (for not providing enough security to ensure customer safety) or the security staff for not doing their jobs and intervening when appropriate. Usually about the time you see some kid seriously start flailing his balled fists around him. However it may also be because some local skinheads or “skins” have decided to either make a point about controlling the pit or just generally want to be their wild, rebellious selves. Just like every other skinhead. FWIW, and appropros of nothing whatsoever, Gay skins (and yes there are quite a few) can be some of the heaviest fighters. Perhaps because they want to prove that they are masculine even though they prefer sex with other males… they tend to overcompensate basically. To be fair they also tend to calm down faster once you get them away from the pit.
This is my appraisal from personal working experience. I’ve probably done about 200 shows with Mosh pits over the course of ten years of working club security at various venues.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
The frenetic dancing and jumping around combined with the bumps and knocks produce an ecstatic state in the ‘moshers’.
I believe this ecstatic state is the reason people mosh (well it’s the reason I did).