For anyone involved in heavier music, the sight is familiar. The tangled mass of pushing and arms and legs flying everywhere is akin to a cartoonish brawl. You know the type, where the fight in question is depicted as a bumbling cloud with extruding limbs and comical sound effects. However, this is something more complicated. Something that, instead of an expression of contempt or fury, is an expression of community. You start to notice people’s smiles as they bash into each other, a quick thumbs up to check if someone’s okay, or even a gap opening up so someone can be lifted out of the pit if they fall over. You notice this and start to then notice a beauty to it all. So what gives? Where did this all come from? Why is it so aggressive yet so communal?
Moshpits have been around for decades. They emerged from the punk scene in England during the 1970s from a type of dance known as “pogoing”, involving the participant jumping up and down to the beat of the music. However, perhaps more surprisingly, the origins of moshing can be traced back to “skanking”, a style of dance resembling the “two step”, which was the dance of choice for fans of ska in the 60s. With all the jumping around, crashing into fellow audience members was common, and so moshing was formed with the rise of US hardcore in the 70s and 80s. Moshing has now become a prevalent part of several music scenes, from post-hardcore, to rap, and experimental music.
Perhaps obviously, moshing at concerts is incredibly controversial, and several times over the last few decades, pits have gotten out of hand and resulted in serious injury or death, leading several artists to take measures to combat moshing at their shows. Chicago alt-rock band The Smashing Pumpkins have been incredibly critical of moshing at their shows after 17-year old Bernadette O’Brien died in a crowd crush at their 1996 show in Dublin. This would happen again in 2007, with a fan passing away at a show in Vancouver, Canada. A more recent example is the infamous Astroworld Festival crowd crush in 2021, in which a total of ten people were killed in a crush during Travis Scott’s set. In addition to the various injuries and deaths that have occurred during mosh pits, another concern lies with women’s safety. At Woodstock 99, perhaps the most infamous example of pit violence, there were a reported two alleged rapes and numerous instances of groping amongst the audience. There is therefore a valid concern that the chaotic and faux-violent nature of moshpits can often become an excuse for male violence, which has resulted in the growth of unofficial “women-only” moshpits at various shows. Such violence in pits has often had consequences for the band performing as well as the audience. In 2013, experimental rap group Death Grips voluntarily cancelled their Lollapalooza set due to antisocial behaviour from the audience, leading to outcry from fans.
The theory of moshpits being used as an outlet for violence becomes more apparent when you look at the modern day indie scene. Whereas pits have always been associated with heavier music, there seems to be an increase in moshing at shows put on by indie bands such as Ireland’s Fontaines DC and NYC’s alt-rock darlings, Geese. Whilst both bands, particularly Geese, have songs that are explosive in their energy, almost demanding movement and expression, there have been numerous cases of pits to slower, more gentle songs at shows, leading to annoyance from other audience members who just want to be in the moment.
The fact of the matter is that whether moshing is an expression of energy or an excuse for violence is very much down to who you are as a person. Moshing itself is not inherently bad. Several bands and artists have openly expressed their love of seeing a pit at their shows as it is a sign that people feel so viscerally toward their music as to want to move about as much as possible. The community within the pit is unlike any other part of music culture and involves a symbiotic relationship between bodies in the pit that involves helping each other out as much as shoving each other around. Whether you take that as an excuse to be aggressive, creepy or antisocial is an issue that you need to address about yourself, and is not the fault of the pit.
