How To: Survive A Mosh Pit!

Saturday 26 April 2014

I know what you’re thinking;
 ‘Mosh-pit? You must be joking! I wouldn’t allow myself in that!’
But believe me, when your mouse is hovering over the price options and you chose standing as its cheaper, you’ll thank me.

1.       Wear sensible clothing – This may seem a stupid point, but you will be surprised the amount of people who wear 7-inch heels to stand in at a concert or wear skimpy high waisted, cheese slicing shorts. Myself, I just opt for the jeans and nice top. Don’t do what some Muppet does *cough* not me *cough*, and wear a thick coat, with a jumper underneath, because my god do you get hot easily in the crowds. And you will end up holding it.the.entire.night…


Maybe the skimpy clothing wasn’t a bad idea after all…

2.       Get there nice and early – Now some people do this so they can get as close as they can to the stage. Personally I don’t fancy looking up skirts and shorts, that’s not what I pay £25 + for. If you have a standing ticket, I like to get in nice and early to, rather more sensibly, take in my surroundings. Plan my exit for when things get wrong and nasty. Locate the bar, check. Locate toilets, check. Locate fire exit, check. Locate the bar, check! See… the important parts!


3.       Find a reasonable crowd – I don’t mean buddy up with a crowd, because I know some people can be sociably awkward, what I mean is again look around. At my recent gig, Tinie Tempah, there were a few older people there. In fact a mother with her two teenage children. Now, I know that that mother isn’t going to join in and mosh. If we stay close enough to her, but not creepy close, then no one will involve us in their ‘mental dancing.’  Once you have found a suitable area, stand your ground. Attach your feet to the floor with sensible shoes, duct tape if you insist!

4.       Position yourself near a barrier – If the crowd are more or less the same age as you, then find a barrier to stand by.  I normally go for the tech barrier, it’s in the middle, there’s nice people inside the boxed off area that can just quickly whisk me out and because they have the camera equipment, you gain an advantage to getting on the screens quicker! Down side is I’ve not tried this theory, yet.


5.       Don’t resolve to violence – I think this is one of the more serious of all of the tips. In some cases you will find that other revellers just don’t like their drink anymore and feel the need to chuck it in the air, contents and all. Or maybe, they just felt that the black hoodie they brought in was no longer needed. If this falls on you, don’t turn around and take it out on the nearest person, just go with the flow. Violence does not solve anything, and in some cases may just start the mosh process.
If you follow me on Twitter, you would have noticed that despite having a brilliant time at Tinie Tempah, I was in fact a victim of ‘drunken-sweaty-man-‘dancing’-and-bumping-into-me.’ Dancing was not the word, more stumbling; into me (did I mention that?). Every time we moved away, he would follow.
Eventually I got so pissed off that I (little me), shoved him back into the crowd while the audience cheered for my bravery! Ha – I wish! No instead, I just put my hands out to stop him bumping into me and gave him the most evil of evils.



6.       If all else fails – Join in! - Now in some gigs, standing isn’t at all that bad. There are no mosh pits to be seen, just the crowd jumping up and down to the blaring music and vibrating bass. This was the case on that night, until Tinie announced that one of the songs is called ‘Mosh Pit’ and that he wanted to see every one mosh.

 Shit!

I looked to my left, the bar had disappeared.
I looked to my right, fire exit not reachable in time.
I had lost my safety crowd. 
That bar had definitely disappeared...
I had no option, but to join in.





So next time you find you are standing in a concert, take on board these simple tips and you’ll walk away absolutely fine. I can’t promise you will walk away with no bruises though! 
Have you been involved in a standing crowd, what where your experiences?

Until next time!


Becky x

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