American mosh pits

[krunchy]

What are American mosh pits like? Do people form circles and push people randomly? Do they skew towards violence?

Do they (god forbid) simply jump up and down to the beat? Good sense of timing?
Most Australian mosh pits I've found to be a bunch of people jumping up and down to the beat of the music. It's a form of dancing afterall, and its very annoying when some idiot thinks that moshing goes from one side to another, or just sits there pushing the person in front of them.
European mosh pits are more like this, with a idiots everywhere pushing people around the place and lots of circles. Circles are shit.

Any insights? RATM should in theory be the best mosh pit ever known to man!

[vinylmartyr]

Do people form circles and push people randomly? Do they skew towards violence?

It can get violent. It will probably so cramped at Coiachella people will just end up get stepped on. I never go anywhere near those things and if anyone crowdsurfs near me I pull them straight to the ground. I been kicked in the head to many times to tolerate it anymore.

[SubBass49]

True that. I used to go all-out in the pits...but somewhere along the way people lost all sense in pits. Took a blindside elbow to the eye socket at an Infectious Grooves show...last time I wanted to be in a pit. Split the skin all around my eye socket and gave me a shiner for close to a month.

Also...just because the act on stage isn't aggro doesnt mean stuff will be calm in the crowd. Scariest moment for me at Coachella was when Bjork played a few years back and the crowd surged forward HARD. I'm about 6'1" 200lbs and was picked up off my feet clean and carried several feet forward. If someone had tripped you'd have been reading about dead people in the next days paper.

Bottom line...be careful.

-- J

[lowfront]

Its kind of hard to say what American mosh pits are like when talking about rage against the machine because rage pits are nothing like normal pits.

Just all out insanity.

And they will be gigantic.

[shoveitupmytoolbox]

uk mosh pits > american mosh pits > icelandic mosh pits > romanian mosh pits

[jimmyrad]

I dont care what the pits are like, as long as every one respects the people around them and everyone looks out for each other. By all means knock my ass down if you want, but at least have the decency to help me back up

[amyzzz]

True that. I used to go all-out in the pits...but somewhere along the way people lost all sense in pits. Took a blindside elbow to the eye socket at an Infectious Grooves show...last time I wanted to be in a pit. Split the skin all around my eye socket and gave me a shiner for close to a month.

Also...just because the act on stage isn't aggro doesnt mean stuff will be calm in the crowd. Scariest moment for me at Coachella was when Bjork played a few years back and the crowd surged forward HARD. I'm about 6'1" 200lbs and was picked up off my feet clean and carried several feet forward. If someone had tripped you'd have been reading about dead people in the next days paper.

Bottom line...be careful.

-- J

I'll be in the back during Bjork. Way back. I'll watch the screens.

[summerkid]

I'll be in the front, like the front row holding on to the rail. If i'm getting squished up against the rail where i'm starting to get hurt I'll tell a security guard to get me out.

[elChurro]

mosh pits = sexual frustrations... get laid people and learn to dance.

[Rezzo]

mosh pits are gay

[kaeso]

Too bad pits can be enjoyable if your in the right mood. Sometimes its fun to get in a pit and just get brutalized. As for their specific nature, their are simply too many contributing factors to properly characterize them nationalistically. I would contend that what band is playing, what the setting is, and ultimately the mentality of those present are the deciding factors

[summerkid]

Yeah....I dont get moshing I'm not a very angry/violent person though so maybe that's why.

[hawkingvsreeve]

Wait for it....

Wait for it....




































BRAVEHEART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lindseyb]

Sometimes its fun to get in a pit and just get brutalized.

Could you please elaborate on this? I've always found mosh pitting to be extremely bizarre behavior.

One of the strangest thing I've ever seen in my life was a mosh pit at a death metal show. My boyfriend's teenage cousin played guitar in a death metal rock band...the type where they scream rather than sing...and we went to see them play. It was so funny because we were the oldest people there (in our 20s); it was all high school kids. We stuck out like sore thumbs amongst all the kids in their black/goth attire. So, at certain points in a song, everyone would do this dance, like spastically kicking and punching the air, everyone lined up in neat rows but staying in one place, facing the band. Then, all at once everyone would start jogging around in a big circle. They would do this for a while, then all of a sudden they would stop and start the kicking in place again. Everyone knew at exactly which point in the song to do the different dance moves. It was so weird and ritualistic.

[hawkingvsreeve]

America's youth.

[momof5]

I have been to shows where older guys who were much too large to mosh thought it was fun to randomly push and barrel into others. If you are over 50 lbs you probably should not throw your body at an unsuspecting person! The only scary time for me at Coachella was when the Morrisey fans surged forward and we kind of lifted off the ground.

[bballarl]

I don't understand how you can enjoy listening to the music when you're throwing yourself around.

[JustSteve]

send all those kids to war and let them get their aggression out that way, i don't want kids like that around me who are into beating people up for fun...at least get some use out of 'em.

[JohnJohnIII]

ah ha hah aha

[ediger]

Big mosh pits are unpredictable at best.

[C DUB YA]

mosh pits = sexual frustrations... get laid people and learn to dance.

hahahaha

[krunchy]

I dont care what the pits are like, as long as every one respects the people around them and everyone looks out for each other. By all means knock my ass down if you want, but at least have the decency to help me back up

Exactly what I'm thinking. Just recently having gone to big day out, I am skeptical of people. That festival was chock full of wankers! Hopefully people are happy to help, always on the lookout for a brother in distress and actually moshing with some kind of timing and tempo that actually sort of goes with the music!
Also, the dude referencing to the flailing arms and legs - hardcore dancing - I think that is. Thank god we don't have such artards in this country. We got plenty of wankers, but the only flailing limbs I have seen are in Europe and that random dickhead nearly punched out about 50 people. Would have liked to see him trampled, as for any other of these hardcore dancing people in the future.

[krunchy]

send all those kids to war and let them get their aggression out that way, i don't want kids like that around me who are into beating people up for fun...at least get some use out of 'em.

Put on a top class music festival in that desert and you'd have too many people signing up! I'd enlist, wait for the festival and then shoot my toe off.

[suprefan]

Wait for it....

Wait for it....











BRAVEHEART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Wall of DEATH!!! Yeah..... We need some of kids HxC dancing those are the funny ones..

[york707]

That dude just wandering around got destroyed. I can't imgine he came out of that OK

[menikmati]

[Trick Loves The Kids]

I'm genuinely scared that someone's going to die or at the very least get seriously injured at Rage this year. The small section at the front of the dance tent was the best idea they ever had... if that hadn't been there I'm sure I would have been crushed at Daft Punk.

[Pemakarpo]

Dave Grohl said it best when I saw him this year up at Gibson and kids were moshing in the pit:

"Slamdancing is for idiots. Girls do not dig it. Instead of running into them why don't you sing along with me to the girl next to you."

Or some shit like that. It seemed really poetic and on point at the time. Anyway, whoever brought up the moshing=sexual frustration thing--piggyback.

[kaeso]

Sometimes its fun to get in a pit and just get brutalized.

Could you please elaborate on this? I've always found mosh pitting to be extremely bizarre behavior.

I say this sort of with tongue in cheek. However, I don't see how it is bizarre. At least when i am in a pit i am actually trying coordinating my movements to the music. Its really just a physical expression that pertains to certain musics. I suppose some people are just letting out aggression but it isn't necessarily so.

[farmer dan]

There's a difference between *moshing* and slinging your fists sparatically with intentions of busting someone in the face. I'll be at the front of the stage for every show. Don't doubt me. I'll dance and jump around if I'm fucked up enough, but no moshing. you wanna mosh? fine. If anyone punches me in the face, someone will die at the concert(I'll claim it was self-defense). even if its unintentional, you shouldn't be acting like a jackass in a large tight crowd of people trying to enjoy the music without injuries