These days, rock `n` roll has become a contact sport.
Not all rock `n` roll, of course. You won`t see slam dancing at a Moody Blues show, and David Crosby isn`t likely to attempt a stage dive. But action that was once confined to the hard-core punk scene of the early `80s has crossed over and become a mainstream phenomenon: Kids will slam, dive and body-surf to virtually any band with a semblance of a hard edge.
”It used to be tied to what was happening on stage,” says Peter Prescott, who until recently was a drummer and singer with Volcano Suns.
”Now, it just seems that`s what they come to do.” So if you`re at a concert by hard-rocking bands such as Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, Soundgarden, Ministry or Nine Inch Nails, look out below. And above. And to the side.
Maybe you first saw it on TV, in the Nirvana video ”Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The clip is filmed in what would seem to be a high school gymnasium. As Nirvana begins to churn away, Kurt Cobain sings, ”Here we are now!
Entertain us!/I feel stupid/And contagious!” The kids in the bleachers begin to bang their heads, slowly, in time.
The kids are real fans, not actors: They`re there because an L.A. college radio station announced where and when to show up. As the song heats up, the kids get more aggressive, slamming, or moshing, into one another, one flipping up onto the shoulders and outstretched hands of others, another hanging from a basketball rim. The frenzy accelerates, and as the song`s climax approaches, the director cuts back more and more frequently to the crowd. A clear message: The band and the crowd are one.
Stage diving and slam dancing are weekly rituals at Chicago shows. Nirvana`s performance a few months ago at Cabaret Metro inspired mayhem that eclipsed the video, with the band trashing its instruments at show`s end. Washington, D.C., punk band Fugazi stopped its show at the Vic several times last year to try to keep the crowd-and aggressive bouncers-from turning the aggressive fun into violence. At Metro shows by New York City hard-rock combo 24-7 Spyz and Danish rap `n` rollers Urban Dance Squad, the bands actually encouraged dance-crazed audience members to join them on stage.
At a sold-out Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in Boston last fall, the so-called mosh pit-the spot where the highly pumped fans do their highly physical, agitated act-reached deep into the crowd. Some fans were jammed against the barricade separating band from crowd. A few lost shoes and shirts. Those fans that were crushed against the barricade, and didn`t want to be, were plucked from the front rows by security and escorted back out. Other security men accepted the bodies of the kids passed overhead from the crowd, lowered them to the floor as safely as possible and ushered them back out into the pit.
The unofficial rule: Two warnings, then an ejection. Earlier, during Pearl Jam`s set, singer Eddie Vedder made it a point to dive into the crowd and make it to the soundboard and back.
But what looks dangerous and out of control to an outsider can seem much more predictable, even disciplined, to an insider. Slam dancing, like the other activities in the mosh pit, is much more like a rugby scrum than a rumble-it has its own unspoken rules. The standards evolved out of the pogo dancing done to the punk rock of the late `70s-mostly an up-and-down affair, with the odd choke hold on your partner. The hard-core punks of the early `80s were more horizontally inclined, and the body-check slam gained popularity. Today`s slamming is a varied free-for-all.
There are bruises and bumps, but more serious injuries seem to be rare.
”I haven`t seen too many all-out brawls,” says Michael Mussori, who has been working security details at rock shows for about five years. ”Not like in the Aerosmith days of the `70s.”
The worst injury Mussori remembers is from a concert last summer when a girl was crushed up against the front barricade when kids rushed the stage. He says members of the security team kept asking her if she wanted to be pulled up and out, but she refused. Near the end, Mussori says, she passed out; her ribs were cracked, and she was carried off in an ambulance.
Not long ago, Neil Jacobsen, a 35-year-old talent agent for a rock booking agency in Los Angeles, decided to try slamming for himself. He crashed a Nirvana mosh pit for more than an hour and made three stage-dives. ”You only live once,” he says. ”I wanted to experience firsthand what it was all about. The mosh pit was cool-real friendly, in a bizarre way. I didn`t see anybody in there who wanted to hurt anybody.
”It`s a weird feeling, diving into the people. You`ve got to have a lot of trust. The vibe is a what it was all about. The mosh pit was cool-real friendly, in a bizarre way. I didn`t see anybody in there who wanted to hurt anybody.
”It`s a weird feeling, diving into the people. You`ve got to have a lot of trust. The vibe is a release of energy. You get caught up in it. It`s a euphoric experience-you get a real adrenaline high. You just get all hot and sweaty and it`s like a real runner`s high. You get to the point where you`re gliding, bouncing off people, and smiling. No one`s out to do anything negative.”
Fright entertainment
Most bands welcome the aggression and the contact with the audience, says Gerry Gerrard, an agent for the InterTalent Agency, which books Nine Inch Nails, Einsturzende Neubauten, Front Line Assembly, Swans and Machines of Loving Grace.
”I won`t say I encourage it, but I don`t see it does any harm,” Gerrard says. ”It can spoil it for some of the fans who want to be at the front, but, basically, if that`s what the crowd wants to do, it`s fine. Most of the artists I work with don`t mind it at all, as long as they don`t mess with the band.
”If somebody does get violent, my bands would be the first to point them out to security.”
Fright entertainment
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails says his take on stage diving and slamming evolved over time.
”From my perspective,” he says, ”when I first saw people stage diving, I saw it as a leftover from the punk era-Circle Jerks shows. When I saw it at my shows, initially, I thought it was inappropriate. But then I realized we`re appealing to a new generation and our show is angry.
”They throw it at me; I want to throw it back at them. My show is intended to get you actually involved, angry and mad, to really connect. … I`ve lost teeth at shows. I`m into the energy. I want to create that feeling of chaos, that you`re part of the melee. It scares you, but it entertains you. I want them to go through an ordeal.”
At a Nine Inch Nails show last year, a fan climbed the cage that surrounded the band`s drummer and executed a swan dive of at least 20 feet out into the audience. Members of the crowd looked at each other in astonishment- then applauded the diver`s audacity or foolhardiness.
”Moshing and diving is quite enjoyable to watch,” says Pixies drummer David Lovering. ”It gets to be a problem in certain cases when people take it over the edge. It`s threatening in some ways. We don`t condone it that much;
sometimes you can`t control it. The last show we did, in New York, we were overrun during the last song-10 or so people on stage. It did seem like it was getting threatening.”
Would he ever stage-dive himself?
”I would do it as a joke,” Lovering says, laughing. ”I don`t think I could really get into it, at least at my age right now, 30.”
Some bands object
The Cramps` Lux Interior has been known to warn stage invaders to keep away, and even to punch out a particularly annoying offender.
The left-wing industrial dance band Consolidated takes an adamant stand against slamming and diving. ”You mean childish, immature male bonding?”
responds drummer Philip Steir, when asked about today`s scene.
”My objection is on a number of levels,” he continues. ”It infringes on the rights of people that want to enjoy a show without being physically assaulted. Our whole point is to provide a forum for education, information and, of course, entertainment. Society promotes violence, domination, greed and power, and these are all the things I see when I look into a mosh pit. When it happens, we stop the show. We`ve done it a million times. But we`ve never walked off.”
These days, he says, Consolidated explains its no-slam policy to fans before a show starts.
”I`ve noticed shows when it seemed out of context,” says producer Gary Smith, who has worked with the Feelies, Chills and Throwing Muses, among others. ”I enjoy watching the show undisturbed, even if means I`m doing my own two-step in my own space. I`d prefer not to have that experience disrupted by someone else`s good time. And when someone gets hurt, it`s unpleasant. I know,” he concludes with a laugh, ”it sounds so un-rock `n` roll.”
It may indeed sound un-rock `n` roll to an increasing numbers of fans, those for whom life is led to its fullest in the mosh pit. Sweat is the grease, bruises are badges, and rock `n` roll is the sound track.
