Metal Reviews

What was the most intense mosh pit you've ever been in??? Where was it??? Who was playing??? Describe...

3 Inches of Blood in Montreal was pretty intense. So was Mastodon now that I think of it.

But the most intense one must of been Obituary in Toronto. 300 people popped out of know where and started battling for space. Not to mention Obituary rocks my socks off.

The Haunted was full of pumped up HxC types... one of them jumped on my head and when I got up I couldn't lift my arms at all for about ten minutes.

Also festival moshpits are pretty intense even if the bands are not as brutal as those in smaller venues.... I guess it's just the fact that there are 250000 people behind you and a metal fence in front of you.

For me it was Slayer. It was the only pit where I sustained a major injury. I got a big gash under my eye during Raining Blood. Ironic isn't it. GWAR was pretty intense as well. So was participating in the Lamb of God Wall of Death...

a few years ago for some portuguese hardcore/metal bands. people were hardcore dancing but not keeping distance (so it was like hardcore dancing + moshing = disaster), plus the stage was really low so if you wanted to see anything you had to be at the front.

some real assholes at these shows, honestly. there's the guy behind you who for no apparent reason pushes you into the pit even though he isn't interested, there's the guy in the pit that pulls you in even though YOU'RE not interested, the guy who thinks stage diving implies kicking as many people in the head as possible and the guy who grabs his friend by the back, who in turn does that "bicycle kick" Liu Kang does in mortal kombat and actually hits people like that.

I always bitch about the LoG moshing at Ozzfest a few summers back. Ninety percents of the lawn just begins moshing and throwing bottles up in the air.

Also at a Behemoth concert, the pit wasn't too bad but there were some drunk army guys and they were dick heads.

I hate hardcore dancing. It's what those pussy metalcore and deathcore fans do. It's very stupid. I forgot to mention Behemoth. I saw them with Keep of Kalessin and they both opened for Dimmu Borgir. It was insane during Behemoth. Too many bodies for such a small space. They opened their set with Slaves Shall Serve which I think is one of the top 5 most intense songs ever written. They played like 5 encores so it felt like it never would end. Cool stuff though...

During Zyklon at the Garage there was a circle pit that spanned the whole venue. The breeze was nice....

The Red Chord was pretty intense (saw them at a festival this summer... not in love with the band, but the singer wore a Symphony X shirt so he's okay in my book). They had a good wall of death.

Is hardcore dancing stupid but moshing OK?

How about banging your head and listen and enjoy the music.

There were two gigs that I remember where the moshing grew a little bit out of hand.

Kreator 2005 - I didn't leave the front stage cos, wth?! It took them so long just to come here and I don't wanna miss them playing. I just headbanged right in front of Kristian that's all. But when I turned back, I saw at least 3 moshpits in that small club. And all three were equally violent. People were flying here and there.

Slayer 2006 - The crowd didn't bother moshing cos of the same reason I had for Kreator. It was apparent Slayer themselves were surprised that we weren't moshing but instead singing along like the songs were ballads. The smile on Tom's face and the horror on Jeff's was clear that they never expected us to be louder that Tom's voice. But when 'Raining Blood' started, everyone went nuts. The grilles broke and it was a riot.

The pit at Slayer's is my most memorable. Throughout the set, I never gave up my front row. Right beside me was this studded Indonesian girl. I always had my hands on the grilles so that I wouldn't lose the good spot I had (right in front of Jeff). But most of the time my hands accidentally bumped into her tits. Not my fault. She got annoyed and kept showing faces. Then she started cursing in Indonesian, and being Malaysian (our languages are pretty similar), I understood every word she said. My friend got pissed as hell. Then when Raining Blood came on, he didn't think twice, he just swung his arms around her neck and threw her into the pit. The next I saw her was outside the venue after the show, all covered in blood. Her ears and nose were torn by the rings and studs she had. I felt sorry for her and screwed the shit out of my friend.

EDIT:

Just remembered:

Napalm Death 2007 - Somebody stage-dived right onto me and I nearly broke my neck. The same guy later was stage-diving and his boots smacked me in the face, breaking my glasses in the process. He annoyed a lot of people that night, so when the moshing started, it was a one-against-all situation. We bashed him up. It was fun stepping his head against the floor. He later had a second bashing from the bouncers half-way through the set.

That was the second time Napalm played here. The first was back in 2001, and there was this guy wearing a shirt with a Nazi swastika on it. He caused a lot of problems with his violent antics. And when Barney introduced 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off', he pointed his finger to that guy. He was later bashed up as well.

The two guys bashed up at both shows is actually the same person. What a prick.

Kinda the same thing happened when I saw Vader. These 2 polish guys were being true assholes all night, and when Kataklysm came on they started fighting in the pit. They had to be broken up by security, some of the guys in the pit got a few swings in on the guys. And then when Vader came on, the 2 guys were all buddy buddy with their arms around each other singing and drinking beer.

I hate to sound pussy but moshing definitely needs to have a limit for safety reasons. Moshing is fun, I won't deny, but only to a certain extent. I really hate those bastards who start throwing punches and giving flying kicks at random people.

It's a good thing that most Malaysian metalheads are very considerate in that way when moshing. It's all just shoulder barges and pushes. But we do have idiots who start throwing punches and kicks. Guess who? The hardcore fags. And what's with the disco dance anyway?

The only fun thing about moshing pits is watching people getting owned from afar...

Wow. I'm so glad I haven't been to any concert that has gay shit like that.

Around here, GWAR pits are consistently less intense than everything surrounding the pits. Everyone makes a mad rush toward the stage so they can get hit with splooge and blood, and it gets pretty tough for a not that tall guy like me to breathe sometimes. When I start to get lightheaded and lose my peripheral vision, I go to the pit where there's oxygen.

Don't know about most intense pit, but Behemoth was the one I got most hurt in. No lasting damage or anything, but I got punched in the throat and it hurt like a mother for a couple days.

I was at a Symphony X show recently and some freaking guy kept bear hugging me, picking me up, carrying me somewhere else, and putting me down. It was weird. He didn't throw me. He didn't hit someone with my helpless body. He just decided I was offsetting the pit's feng shui and I had to be relocated.

In New Jersey, we get a lot of death metal/hardcore shows, to which both metal and hardcore guys show up. The result usually is actually fairly tame pits because the hardcore guys want to do their thing, but the metal guys just don't bother as long as people are spinkicking and stuff, so the pits just end up underpopulated.

The best pits are at ska shows. It's just a big fucking party. Lots of energy, packed full of people, and nobody actually getting hurt.

Actually broke my finger in a hardcore-pit once.. Stupid moron... We were playing next, which didn't go very well.

Damn. So have you recovered from it?

His finger? Yes. His prde? No.