The pit of despair

By • Sep 28th, 2007 • Category: Columns

If you like this column – that is, if it strikes an emotional chord, unlocks a part of you, says what you’re feeling, or connects to a part of your subconscious the way that a song can – please do not punch the nearest person in the back of the skull. Or slam into them with the full force of your body weight. Or take out their knees. Or lift them above your head to pass them around like a medicine ball, or climb onto their shoulders to be passed.

These hardly are reasonable ways to show that you’re having a good time, unless of course, you’re at a rock show. Then indulging these primitive behaviors is OK. No less dangerous than doing them to a stranger on the sidewalk, but OK nonetheless. Actually, accosting a random passerby might be safer. Not only is there the off chance of seeing how ridiculous you look in the reflection of a store window, but there certainly won’t be 110 decibels drowning out the screams for police aid when your victim tries to fight off the ambushing lunatic.

Unfortunately for a 20-year-old Smashing Pumpkins fan, those shouts for help – if they even came – weren’t heard Monday. At the band’s Vancouver gig, a young concert-goer was killed in an apparent mosh-pit accident. Another Pumpkins fan told News1130 Radio that the man was crowd surfing, fell into a pit, and was dragged out moments later “lifeless.” Although the details still are being revealed, and the results of Thursday’s autopsy won’t be published for a few weeks, one thing is certain – one fewer person left the PNE Forum than showed up that night. That is not something anybody should forget.

In the days since the accident, blame for the man’s death has been placed on everyone from Billy Corgan to the event’s security, and the finger pointing isn’t going to cease soon. Lawsuits, possibly several, will follow by helpless family members trying to find answers to how their loved one could leave home for a night, and not return. Critics will sight that this isn’t the first time that a person has been killed amidst the crowd at a Smashing Pumpkins performance. They’d be right, too, as a 17-year-old girl was crushed during a tour stop in Dublin in 1996.

But at some point, the onus has to fall to each individual in attendance to adhere to the general rules of safety that we abide by in daily lives, yet get tossed aside at rock venues. That’s not to trivialize this death, or attempt to clear the consciences of the security staff members paid to ensure the well being of the performers and the crowd. It is, however, saying that mob action is dangerous by nature. And when tens, or tens of thousands, of people are pushing, kicking, tossing and assaulting each other, in a dark, enclosed environment that is so loud that it’s next to impossible to hear your neighbor, things can get life threatening.

The risk increases because concerts are meant to be a euphoric and uplifting experience. They’re meant as an escape, and a way to join likeminded individuals. One of the last things that should cross a person’s mind en route to a Smashing Pumpkins show is, “I hope I don’t die tonight.” Or worse, “I hope I don’t kill anyone tonight.” These aren’t thoughts that should cross people’s minds regardless if they are at a concert or not. But the almost trance-like state that crowds enter while watching a band only heightens the dangers of mosh pits, as many times people get lost in their connection to the stage and ignore everyone around – or maybe trapped beneath – them.

This week’s Pumpkin tragedy is the second major pit-related incident in less than a month. Ten people were sent to the hospital in Syracuse, NY., after the crowd got out of hand during Projekt Revolution Tour headliners My Chemical Romance. Luckily it didn’t end as devastatingly as last year’s Family Values tour, where a person was beaten to death in a pit during a Korn show in Atlanta. The increasing awareness of concert violence in recent years has caused some acts, such as Pearl Jam who had nine fans crushed to death during a Roskilde Festival stop in 2000, to outlaw circle pits and crowd surfing during shows.

But short of putting a security guard next to every person in attendance, much of the responsibility to respect such wishes falls on individual fans. Although bands can have a Pide Piperean control over the audience – determining when they clap, how they wave their arms, when they call out and respond – often times the line of what a fan is willing to follow is drawn at courtesy. And although it’s been well documented that acts can incite a crowd, evident by Limp Bizkit fueling the riots at Woodstock ’99, getting a crowd to relinquish its assumed right to mosh is a daunting task.

But it’s one that more people should champion.

Large mosh pits are not unlike violent unrest, and those who scoff when cars are overturned and fires get started in celebration when a team wins a championship might be the same people willing to supply a sharp forearm to the neck during a band’s encore. These sorts of neandertal behaviors at best only ruin the evening for other people, and at worse can end up like Monday did for an unsuspecting Smashing Pumpkins fan. And getting a handle on the absurdity of manic, selfish fandom isn’t only an issue of enjoyment – it’s a matter of life and death.

Northwest Herald, Sept. 28, 2007

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