Caught in a mosh!

Caught in a Mosh!

Ever been in a mosh pit? A real mosh pit? Not the gentle bumping together of bodies in a circle at Sasquatch. A reaaaaaal mosh pit.

When I was a wee 6'3" fourteen year old, I was into metal. Reaaaaaaaaly into metal. Though it wasn't the only genre I listened to, it was the bulk of what I listened to. Live After Death, Ace of Spades, Master of Puppets, Reign in Blood, Bonded by Blood, Peace Sells..., Spreading the Disease, Screaming for Vengeance, Blackout... METAL!

At this point in my young life, there weren't many friends who were also into this. I'd been to a handful of shows. Metallica and The Scorpions. Dokken and Judas Priest. Metallica and Ozzy. Slayer at what was apparently a restaurant by day and a metal venue by night. I'd quickly learned that, even though I loved the music, I didn't really care for the bulk of the fans. Asshole meatheads who would just as likely punch you in the ear as they would offer you a shot of Jack.

Every see Heavy Metal Parking Lot? Yeah. That. It's so spot on, it ceases being funny.

In 1987, I would be introduced to a band that I would see a ton of times over the next 4 years. Death Angel. Five Filipino cousins who played brutal, mosh worthy metal. Their lyrics were what you'd expect of super young, angry dudes from the East Bay. Ridiculous. Violent. Rage!

One weekend, when I wasn't at a swim meet and was busy growing my cheesey young teen mustache, my friend Dennis offered to take me to see a Death Angel show at the Mountain View theater in, you guessed it... Mountain View, California.

The venue was a "renovated" theater. The seats were pulled out. There was a slope to the floor that proved problematic once the show got underway. It was kind of a dump, but it had a good sound system. And a stage. A stage and a sound system.

Everyone in Death Angel was around my age, and Andy Galeon, the drummer was actually a little YOUNGER than me. I was 15 at the time. Their debut album, The Ultra-violence, had just come out. I couldn't stop listening to it. I was blown away that a 15 year old played drums on this brutal piece of metal. FIFTEEN!

I had never been to a show this small, this intimate. Yeah, I "saw" Slayer earlier in the year at a smaller place, but it doesn't really count. It was really a couple hundred people crammed into what seemed to be a family friendly buffet style restaurant by day and a sweaty metal club at night. It was packed to the gills with sweaty metalheads and I could barely see the band. Basically, I was crammed into this club, couldn't really move and just rocked back and forth at the whim of the crowd while Slayer blasted their set from somewhere nearby. I think I caught a glimpse of Tom Araya at one point. I take it on faith that Dave Lombardo was behind a drum kit somewhere. Still... SLAYER!

The Mountain View Theater was luxurious by comparison and Death Angel wasn't as huge a deal as Slayer just yet. There were maybe 300-350 people at this show... I think. It was well attended, but we weren't stuffed into the place.

The opening bands were decent, but forgettable. So decent and forgettable that I have no idea which bands they were 32 years later. Back then there were a lot of bands like this in the Bay Area. They blast through their sets.

"Fuck you! You suck!"

"Posers!"

"Insult screamed at stage with the bravado only being anonymous in a crowd of several hundred other people can provide!"

Metalheads. I tell ya.

Then Death Angel came on stage! I think they opened with Thrashers. Very on the nose what with them being a thrash band! Still. I lost my shit!

And oh! Hey! Here's something new. The 15 feet of the floor just under the stage seems to be a maelstrom of fists, boots, and elbows all engaged in some sort of kinetic energy experiment or the recreation of a wasp entering a well defended beehive.

This. This is the mosh pit.

Some folks called it slam dancing, but that was more of a punk/hard core thing. More anarchic. More of a display of individual anger or rage.

This was a mosh pit.

A song would go thrashing along. A group of angry white dudes from the suburbs standing close to the stage would start surging in an ellipse, roughly in unison to the beat and tempo of the song. They're shoving each other. Gesturing wildly. Some furiously. Others take a more relaxed stance and march more slowly around the circle... these are the ones you need to watch out for! These dudes will unexpectedly fuck your shit up big time at a time of their choosing.

I am FASCINATED by this. I'd heard about and seen mosh pits in music videos, but had never seen one up close. It felt like storm chasing. I wanted to be in the center of it, but knew I should probably stay at a safe distance so I was not destroyed by its destructive power.

Then, something fascinating happened. The band launched into "the mosh part" of their song. The mosh part is typically the point in a metal song where the tempo slows down, and they transition into this slow stomping groove. It has a distinct effect on a mosh pit. It's like seeing a time ramp from real time to slow motion in an episode of Mythbusters. Everybody turns into that guy that was marching more slowly than everyone else. You can almost hear the stomp of the pit over the music at this point. It's really very ominous in a way.

THEN!

Back to thrash tempo. The slo-mo effect abruptly ends and the pit reverts to a much more furious tempo and rhythm. Shit just gets crazy! Elbows are flying. People are shoving. People fall.

Oh shit! I just saw like three heads disappear into the singularity of the pit! Instantaneously, a couple more heads disappear from the pit. I'm breathless.

Did these people just get trampled to death?! What the fuck is going on?

Mere seconds later, all the heads pop back up and get back into the rhythm of the pit.

Here's the thing. For as chaotic and brutal as a mosh pit can be, there's an honor code. You're gonna get shoved around. You're going to shove people around... mostly just to maintain your balance and forward momentum. Eventually, you're going to go down or you're going to take someone down.

Now is not the time to panic! You get on all fours as quickly as possible so you're in a position to A) not be stomped to death and B) be ready to grab the hand reaching down to help you up. When that hand reaches down, you grab it with all of your strength and get your ass on your feet ASAP! Then prepare for the giant shove you're about to receive to get you back into the rhythm of the pit, so you don't go down immediately after getting to your feet.

Between the ages of 14 and 23, I was repeatedly amazed at the how universal this honor code was. I got knocked down a lot. I knocked a lot of people down. Hell, Chuck Billy from Testament knocked my ass halfway across the floor of The Omni at a Death Angel show and after his meaty arm came down to my rescue, he promptly pushed me back into the rapids of the mosh.

It was unspoken. Get knocked down, someone helps you up. Knock someone down, help them up. It always worked this way. Give as good as you get.

There was one exception to this. Nazi Skins. I don't know why they liked to come to Death Angel shows, what with them being Filipino and all, but they were always there. When you knock one of them down... you march along, ignoring them. If you're going to be a Nazi, you must suffer the wrath of the mosh pit unaided. Expect that the bulk of the people in the pit are gunning for you to go down.

I always relished giving a Nazi Skin a shove that drove them to the floor and delighted in making a couple laps around the circle before they could make it to their feet... and then I'd knock 'em again.

There's always an exception to the rule.

I was a mosh pit warrior for about 10 years. Then I moved to Seattle where there was no metal that I could discern and the pit at a Melvins show is only so interesting. More polite nudging than anything else. BOOOOOOOOORING!

In all of my metal show attendance there were only three times I can remember seeing the mosh pit and saying to myself, "Uh uh. No way. Fuck that shit. I don't want to die today."

1. Kreator/Coroner at The Stone in 1990

2. Slayer headlinging Clash of the Titans in 1991

3. Sepultura/Ministry at The Filmore in 1993

Those pits were waaaaay too brutal for me to get into. I was an angry young person, but I wasn't that angry or masochistic.

At age 47, I can't for the life of me, imagine getting into a mosh pit at a metal show now. I do still enjoy watching one spring to life, so I can watch people swim or do the Toxic Waltz. It's as fascinating to me 30 years after seeing my first one.