Your crazy mosh pit / crowdsurfing stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The other night I went crowdsurfing for the first time at the Incubus show, and it was a blast (the show and the crowdsurfing). Although, I must admit that I didn’t follow my cardinal rule of the pit (where pants that fit) and I ended up losing my pants. Oh, well. Small price to pay for the closest one can get to being weightless.

Anyway, seeing as how the SDMB is always on my mind (sarcasm or the sad, sad truth? you decide), it gave me an idea for a post. So, without further ado, share… (dun dun DUUUUN!) YOUR CRAZY MOSH PIT / CROWDSURFING STORIES!

2

Sadly the only decent Mosh Pitting stories I have are pretty violent. Puches, jabs, kicks, stomps, biting, etc.

Although I did mosh into this hot Roxxor Chick, and ended up going home with her. Of course, that is another story all together. :slight_smile:

3

I haven’t been in a pit in a while; I’ve got the whole father-of-two, married, corporate job, picket fence life now, but in the day used to love the punk life. I wouldn’t describe my pit experiences as crazy, let alone “CRAZY!”, but here are a couple of memories:

About 15 years ago I saw a group (either Primus or Nirvana, I’ve forgotten) in Tijuana. I was wearing brand new glasses, and I’m blind without my glasses. During the first song I went into the pit and within 10 minutes my glasses went down and turned into 500 pieces. I figured there was no way I’d find any of my friends blind, so I spent the whole concert in the pit. We didn’t call it moshing then, it was called slam dancing. At the end of the show, I went to the main exit hoping someone would see me, since I couldn’t see them. I missed all my friends, but a girl I knew recognized me and gave me a ride across the border home.

Also maybe 15 years ago, I saw Living Colour, and while I was in the pit, Corey Glover jumped into the crowd. That was the first time I’d seen an artist do that. Peter Gabriel used to lay on the crowd, but that was kindof a subtle thing. Corey just jumped out there, it was pretty punk. Oh, I saw him before the show, I’ll reproduce our conversation here in it’s entirety:

Bill: Yo, Corey! Wassup?
Corey: Wassup.
I saw a band called the Electric Love Hogs and they threw a t-shirt in the pit while I was there. About 8 of us grabbed it and yanked in different directions. I was sure it’d rip to shreads, and I figured if I got a piece of it that’d be cool. Well, it stayed together and came down to me and another guy pulling it. A huge boucer came up and threw me, the other guy and the shirt out of the pit back out of the crowd. We flipped a coin for the shirt and I won. I swear the thing was like a nightshirt it was so stretched.

I always hated the people who would kick while the crowd carried them around. We used to yank their shoes off and throw them as far as possible. Nothing more annoying than getting kicked in the head from above. Especially from a steel toed boot.

When I was first going out with my wife (maybe 10 years ago), we went and saw NIN and Bowie. Pretty mainstream by the time that combo came together, but they had a pit. My wife had never been near a pit, and I took her in and kindof held her behind me so she didn’t get hit. The energy is pretty cool.

4

One time I was at a party. It was pretty tame as far as things go, but there was this one guy - a really little guy - who got completely blotto. He went around to everyone, trying to get a mosh pit started (don’t ask me why… we didn’t have any music playing, nor did we have a huge crowd). Finally, I just said, “All right”, and hurled my massive body right at him. My shoulder collided with his shoulder, and he flew right into a nearby couch and flipped over.

He stopped trying to get people to mosh with him after that.

5

One time I got personally yelled at by Bruce Dickenson at a sold out New Haven Coloseum for starting a stage rush. Thats wasn’t too embarassing.
Like robgruver, most of the good ones involve blood, memory loss and that sort of thing.
The only mosh pit I was ever scared to go in was a Sick of it All show, and a bunch of people in the pit had bike chains they were swinging around. They were having fun beating the hell out of eachother, so good for them.
There was a fight over a running circular saw between me, who was helping my friends band that night as a roadie, and the sound guy.
The time A.C. (Anal C*nt) played a small bar, and threw potted plants in their clay pots into the pit.
Slayer playing Toads Place in New Haven, the place lost control during the Angel of Death / Hell Awaits encore. I bled heavily that night.
Too many hardcore and punk shows to remember.
Now I’m missing all the dives I used to go and see these bands in.

6

Seems a little tame these days. Anyhoo, back in the early 80’s stage diving and slamming in the pit were the rage. SF was pretty fun as the crowds weren’t so huge. Check out the maximum rock ‘n’ roll double album set, I foget what it’s called, but has a great pix of some guy diving off the speaker stack into the crowd. Slamming in LA was fucking intense ALL the time.

The elite club, circa 1981, 5 bands including Wasted Youth, TSOL and the Dead Kennedy’s played. It was packed with about 2000 punks. The Elite Club was the only place I knew of where they sold beer in cans, and the over 21 crowd would suck down the beer and then wing it over the crowd at the band. So the band would be up there with a shower of beer cans flying at them, people flying off the stage left and right, and a big ol slam pit going.

Things really started going when the singer for wasted youth pissed in a beer can on stage and then slung it into the crowd. Jack, the singer for TSOL did the encore in a speedo and a poodle shirt, IIRC it was Code Blue. I never personally like Jello Biafra too much, but that night he got his pants ripped off and he still dove in the crowd like he always did buck naked. Not once, but about 10 times.

It was a good night. I always finished those shows covered in beer, dust, bunch of bruises, sometimes cuts since SF was a real leather crowd with serious studs hanging off of jackets and armbands. And that was just one of probably hundreds of shows.

7

Shane McGowan and the Popes, December of last year. I’ve been to some crazy shows, but this one took the cake. Can you imagine 1,500 drunken Irish doing an insane mix of Riverdance and Slam Dancing?
And I’m going to see the original Pogues lineup, with Shane singing in December.

May God have mercy on my soul.

8

Saw The Ramones at Hammerjacks in Baltimore. (No, I wasn’t a Hammerjerk.) At one point some guy climbed up the speaker stack until his hips were about level with the upper deck (where I was standing). The upper deck was horseshoe shaped, around and above the lower floor. I was on the opposite side of the stage as soon-to-be-diver. Any-hoo, dude does this incredible swan dive, planning on hitting the crown 20 feet below in the pit.

[interruption]
For those of you who have never seen a pit from above, the best way I can describe it is a chaotic bundle of people slamming into each other while, as a group, they move around the floor. It’s sort of like a big ass Spiro-graph made of people.
[/interruption]

During the short interval of time while our hero was floating gracefully, chest first, towards the mass, the throng of people moved. Dude slammed chest first in an incredible belly flop on the floor. As in in apology, the crowd immediately moved back to the target area, trampling our fallen hero. After about 5 minutes, he got up and staggered to the bar, probably never to return.

Meanwhile, I laughed and watched women lift their tops fromt he upper deck. I also got a set list handed to me from Joey (GRHS).

9

Well, my friend got her head cut open in a Fugazi pit when we were in highschool.

And after being in the pit for ONE rammstein show, I decided I’d much rather WATCH the show than get myself killed.

But a funny pit story was after Rammstein villa park concert in 1999, my friend and I were waiting around for the afterparty to start and watched the villa park staff clean up the place…and there was a gigantic, and I mean three feet high pile of errant and missing shoes all swept up into one corner. How many kids went home barefoot that night I have to wonder.

jarbaby

10

I was set on fire at a Jane’s Addiction concert.

Some girl was trying to smoke on the edge of the pit and I was unfortunate enough to be standing next to her. Sometimes you don’t have to be in the pit, sometimes it comes to you. And that’s what happened, the moshers kinda enveloped us where we stood. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but the girl lost her cigarette. It fell on my arm and WHOOSH! all my arm hair lit up. I smacked it out pretty quickly and didn’t suffer any skin damage, but I was silky smooth.

11

China Guy wrote

I met him when he was playing in some band post-TSOL. Cool guy. At one point, they played Code Blue and he just handed the mic to some random audience member and walked over to the side of the stage. The audience guy was screaming the lyrics and the crowd went wild.