Those of you that know me know that when I go to a show, I like my moshes to be straight fucking moshes. This means there should be precisely 3 things going on: pushing people, running in circles, and pushing people some more. Those of you that know me also know my opinion about hardcore kids (for those of you who don't, I hate them, as the title implies). This was solidified last year at a Between The Buried and Me concert when, while defending myself from a hardcore dancer, I got sucker punched in the face. I have an old blog on my myspace ranting about why, if people are seeing an EMT on a regular basis at your shows, the reaction should not be "YEAH, HARDCORE DUDE!!!" Rather, people should wonder what is wrong with their scene that causes so many grievous injuries.
However, risk of life and limb aside, I still enjoy the music and, while I come out of some shows with a few bruised, the incident at Between The Buried And Me was relatively isolated in my personal experience. That was why I wasn't terribly fazed when I got to the Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza show last night. There was the usual run of idiots flailing around like retarded fish out of water, and because the space was limited, they were a little harder to avoid than usual. Nothing I can't handle though. You can take a punch to the face, you can survive a few hits in the arms or back (which is where I'm very sore right now). However, halfway through the second band's set (Born of Osiris: they were awesome, like As I Lay Dying but grindier) I noticed that we were dealing with a very special breed of asshole at this show.
See, at most shows, the hardcore kids maintain a moderate distance from the edge of the pit out of whatever small shred of courtesy they may have for their fellow concertgoers. This show however, had people rushing the edges with spin kicks and flailing punches. Now I cannot stress this point enough here, hardcore dancers look like fucking morons. Words can't even describe how stupid this new moshpit fad is, so I'll let video do it for me.
Look at these fucking idiots. Oh my god it makes me want to shoot myself, as if this is truly the up and coming generation, we are all fucked.
Anyway, Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Born of Osiris, and See You Next Tuesday (aka CUNT) went off without a hitch for the most part. CUNT was too drunk though, and by the end of their set, it degraded to pure noise. Not like grind noise, but like the guitarist slamming his fretboard against the amp. At one point he pulled me onto the "stage" (which was elevated about 6 inches off the ground) and threw me into the audience. I have no idea why. Anyway, Beneath The Massacre was headlining, and Mike and I were there for TDTDE and them, so we were pretty stoked. 10 minutes into the set, a guy came up on the stage, said something to the singer, and the singer announced "OK, guys, stop fighting with each other out there. Just come up here and headbang with us, we all want a good time but people don't have to get hurt." Solid advice from a cool guy. Flash forward to 5 minutes later when the show stopped again because 10 guys were beating the living shit out of 1 person. I don't know what that guy did, but these fucking pussies were on him like balls in a hardcore kid's mouth. They were slamming him into the bar, knocking him down, and punching and kicking him in the face. There was a puddle of blood on the floor about one foot in diameter. We're not talking smears here, we're talking an actual puddle. I also saw what I believed to be a tooth, but I couldn't be sure because all of the blood on the floor was obscuring things. Have all of my italics made this clear enough?
At this point a guy from the knitting factory came out and started yelling at the crowd that "they were acting like a bunch of fucking idiots and that they needed to show some fucking respect for the bands". Then they canceled the rest of the show. That's right, hardcore kids managed to get a show fucking canceled because they wouldn't listen to the band (who they supposedly respect enough to pay money to see) when they told them to fucking cool it. The show got divided into two people: those who supported the knitting factory guy, and those who kept chanting "fuck you, asshole!" Let me make this clear. They were beating the living shit out of somebody for no good reason (I don't know what he did, but nobody deserves the beating that he took unless they are Osama Bin Laden or Peter Jackson) and they were outraged when the band told them to stop beating the shit out of people. I have gone to somewhere between 30 and 40 metal shows and have never seen a beating half this severe. Before this, my trump card of mosh pit stories was my friend Ben getting half of his front tooth kicked out.
On the way out of the show, I commented to Mike that this was why hardcore dancing is stupid. Somebody gets hurt, a fight breaks out, and it wrecks the show for people who just wanted a night of headbanging and heavy music. Some dude overheard it and started calling me a "faggot pussy motherfucking bitch" and suggested that I "go cry about it" like "a faggot". And that sums up the hardcore scene right there. A bunch of meatheads who can't resolve conflicts like a human being and instead gang up on people, because in a one on one fight they would go down like the dickless pieces of shit that they are.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
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