Every rocker loves the feeling of a live concert. From the ear splitting loudness to the nostalgia kick you get when the band plays your favorite song—but there is nothing like a mosh pit. Every ounce of adrenaline starts pumping throughout your body and you completely lose yourself in the moment. Although there are many amazing things that come with a mosh pit, sometimes situations go horribly wrong. We interviewed a few campers and even a counselor about their worst mosh pit experiences.
The first camper we questioned was Chris, and his answer definitely did not lack an edge. He was at Sounds of the Underground—a festival at the Gorge in George, Washington—when he got a vision he will not soon forget. While watching the band Emure, he saw that a guy had fallen in the pit. Apparently nobody bothered to pick him up and a larger guy that was moshing in the pit ended up jumping on the fallen guy’s neck. Needless to say, he didn’t end up shaking it off and just getting up on his feet. Actually, the impact of the jump broke his neck and his spinal chord pierced through his skin; thus causing his death. This was easily one of the worst stories we heard.
Eddie, a guitar player at camp, was at a show that he was playing in at La Grande. He had needed to talk to a bandmate, so he decided to just go into the packed crowd and find him before his band’s set time. He got behind his friend, but merely yelling was not getting his attention, so he decided to push him. His push was the first domino to fall. Pretty soon the whole crowd was a huge pit, and in the end, Eddie had intentionally started a mosh pit for the show.
Another horrifying story came from another rock camper named Trevor. It was a Bad Religion concert, but he didn’t even have to be in the pit to witness the scene. Just on the edge of the stage there was a large chain-link fence wrapped around the band, creating a cage so that crowd surfers couldn’t rush the stage. One man decided to climb the chain link and was pulled off by the back off his shirt. Trevor says the man fell, and somehow wound up having his jugular ripped from his throat.
On a slightly lighter note, Andy, a camp counselor, had gone to a Less Than Jake set at the Warped tour and someone had put a trampoline in the pit. As you can imagine, it quickly turned into chaos as everyone was launching themselves from the trampoline. With the music blaring and the trampoline bouncing, Andy became totally disoriented—he said that he had gotten turned around at least twenty times during the show. He wasn’t the only one: At one point, the whole mosh pit fell over. Imagine being squished between a bunch of guys and having no choice but to fall down with everyone else. Even though everyone could have just gotten mad about it, people just started helping each other up and got back to moshing.
Lastly, we talked to Aislinn about her worst mosh pit experience. She was at a From First To Last show, in the front of the pit, when she saw a guy get hit by a swinging mic. The mic had cut his face and blood got onto her new white band shirt she had just bought at the show. Even as one of the less intense stories, we can all agree that spending money on a band shirt just to get it stained with some random guy’s blood would really ruin a good mosh pit.
From deaths to bloody shirts, a mosh pit can be a horrible place to find yourself. But the rush you get from being in the pit easily makes the risk worth while. Hell, what would a rock concert be without getting to jump with the beat of the bass drum while rubbing against a bunch of random people? Not fun, that’s what.
-Paige Snively
