Well, I didn’t really go into the mosh pit, but…
My son Pat and I went to see the band Brand New tonight, along with opening acts Modern Baseball and The Front Bottoms.
Pat has told me about mosh pits before, and how much he enjoys getting in the middle of one. However, I’d never actually seen one live before (it’s not the sort of thing you see at a Springsteen or Boz Scaggs concert), and it was quite the spectacle.
Theres a couple thousand people packed onto the floor and right in the front center section there’s a group of people just writhing uncontrollably, bumping/smashing into each other. The phrase ‘whirling dervish’ comes to mind.
A good analogy would be to imagine an elevator with a 10 person capacity with 20 hyped-up people on it and everyone is trying like crazy to get to the corner of the elevator farthest from them. The Tasmanian devil would be in heaven .
There’s also lots of crowd surfing, and when a person makes it the front, they are sort of dumped over the railing, where some type of security personnel are waiting to catch them. From there the person just needs to walk around the perimeter of the railing and join the crowd at the back and I guess slowly work their way to the front again.
It’s not something that looked appealing to me, but then again I think I was twice as old as any other member of the audience.
Everyone involved in the mosh pit seemed to be having a great time, so I guess that’s what matters.
It was a great show, and I thank my son for inviting me along; it was a chance to broaden my musical horizons.
And here’s some Brand New from tonight’s show:
and here’s the full song, from when they were just starting out:
And here’s the mosh pit scene from Ace Ventura:
Borden's Blather 