I Fear the Mosh

As you may (or may not) have read, I went to a Hawthorne Heights concert a little over a week ago. The show was amazing and I had a great time, but one part of it that has continued to haunt me each day after. The mosh pit. Through out the night I was smacked around as if I was a tennis ball in Wimbledon. It started during the Tickle Me Pink set. (A Mile After played first, but I missed them, so this is where my night started.) At this point, there was about a three row crowd. The first and second rows stood looking up towards the stage, while the third row hastily pushed each other around. Every now and then someone would slam into my back. Causing me to slam into the person in front of me. Causing them to jut their backside into me in a violent attempt to make their own space bubble. After this had happened around four or five times, I firmly planted my feet into the ground and held tightly to my camera in fear that in the next few moments it would become something of the past. This didn't work at all. After about five more times of being slammed into the person in front of me, a guy standing near by grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me in front of him. This was the best shove of the night. His helpful push pushed me into the group of people more interested in the music, and not in beating the crap out of each other. I turned around, looked him right into his eyes, and mouthed the only two words I could think to say. "Thank you." After Tickle Me Pink, The Color Fred came on. No moshing here. After the Color Fred, Emery came on. Too much moshing here. This was probably the worst part of the night for me. The crowd went crazy trying to push each other, as well as push themselves up towards the front in an attempt to get a feel of their screamer's hand. A few minutes into the set, their screamer (I have no idea what his name is) walked out to the edge of the stage, only to then continue to step onto the barricade and step out onto the crowd. He thought that this crowd of teenagers was going to be able to hold him up and that he was going to be able to balance. This made me extremely noticed. I stood shaking looking up at his long and lanky body as he tried to keep his balance. After several very close calls, he decide to step off the crowd and back onto the stage. I found this a good idea, since I couldn't get the image of his six foot tall body teetering over and crashing down on me out of my head. The set ended about ten minutes later. Only after a girl screamed obscenities into my ear as she tried to get her opinion of Hawthorne Heights out in the open. I got the feeling that she didn't come to see them. But I did, and they were up next. The mosh was pretty much the same as before, but with more crowd surfers. The same guy from the Tickle Me Pink set grabbed me and pushed me towards the front. This helped a lot since he pushed me all the way to the barricade and I was now surrounded by the people like me, who just wanted to see them play. Here I was able to avoid the mosh for the most part, until the last song. When JT Woodruff sung the first few words of "Ohio is for Lovers" the crowd went crazy. Besides the few people near me, everyone was moshing. I was holding tightly to the barricade in hopes to not get pulled off and pushed in. I was very scared that this would happen when a guy tried to jump onto my shoulders in an attempt to make it past the barricade. Luckily before he could make it very high the bouncer rushed over picked him up by his shoulders and sent him on his marry way. Over all the concert was awesome and I had a great time. But it'll be nice to rest a little while before I get out there again.