It's a Man's World

Remember the days when people got in the front of a concert hall to be closer to the band or to dance? Remember when one could do this without taking one's life in one's hands? If you can remember, you must be getting along in years, as I am. I can recall pogoing to my favorite punk rock bands. We raised as much energy as kids do now in the mosh pits and nobody got injured. Then slam dancing became the thing and it got a lot rougher. Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedys wrote "Nazi Punks Fuck Off"^* about the excesses certain jockified "punks" brought to this practice at his shows. But it was still benign compared to what goes down today.

So when did it get "cool" for a big jock to go to concerts as if they were football games and just knock down everything in their sight? I have seen several pro-moshing web pages. One of them defends moshing by insisting that stage diving and crowd surfing isn't really moshing. And even more absurdly insisting that if someone falls down and is trampled, he didn't die because of the moshing but because of the trampling. (Pro-Mosh Organization) Come on! James Cook insists in Zen and the Art of the Mosh Pit that one "should" pick up a fallen mosher so he doesn't get hurt and so he doesn't cause others to trip by lying there. But how many people have seen fallen moshers left to their own devices? I sure have. Certainly, there are ways, no doubt, to make things safer for oneself while moshing. The best way is to acquire the body of a quarterback or find a quarterback to protect you. If this "option" somehow doesn't seem to satisfy, I guess you're just a sorehead.

At the 1999 Woodstock festival, women were actually raped in the mosh pit. But some concert-goers, far from being sympathetic or concerned, said things like, "I'm tired of people making excuses for their own fucking stupidity. Limp Bizkit equals mosh pit. Duh." So it's hardly surprising when a woman who had been raped in the mosh pit during Limp Bizkit's set "said that the size and mood of the crowd stopped her from yelling for help--she was afraid she'd be beaten up." According to Spin Magazine, men moshing to Limp Bizkit "broke arms, legs, teeth, noses, collarbones. Scalps were lacerated by flying, half-full bottles, One mosher suffered a compression fraction of the spine. Another broke two ribs and prodded the medic treating him to finish quickly so he could return to the pit. Yet another boy's shoulder popped right out of its socket. As he stumbled toward security, his fellow moshers yelled, 'Pussy!'"

This is totally out of control. Some bands encourage moshing because it raises energy for the music. But people can raise energy without hurting and raping each other. Moshing on this level obviously only benefits the jock males who figure they can do whatever the fuck they want to do because they have the muscle and weight. Why must enjoyment of music and proximity to one's favorite band be limited by these boneheads who don't respect anything but their own brutality? Some bands have their own way of dealing with this. Courtney Love, for example, has often insisted on more girls being allowed to come forward. She sometimes takes girls onto the stage. Once, she belted two really testesterone-driven jockoids who had copped a feel from her while she stage-dove. The two looked very able to take care of themselves but they choose to go whining to a law suit. How pathetic is that? Can one say, "can dish it out but can't take it?" And yet, despite all precautions, a woman was still killed at a fairly recent Hole concert in the Hultsfred Festival

Suppose someone wants to get close enough to one's favorite musicians to see them sweat but doesn't want to be brutalized? Is there an answer? My suggestion is designated mosh pits where the moshers can have a field day. And other designated areas right by the band where non-violence is the rule. Everyone would get what s/he wants and those who violate the rule would get the heave-ho. This would be the fair thing to do. Or, as they chanted in the 60's, "GIVE PEACE A CHANCE."