Man, it’s Christmas Eve and I so want to just laugh this off and not waste bandwidth…but…i…am…compelled….to…respond. I apologize in advance.
Allow me to clarify... this has always been a pet peeve of mine. People who go to shows and then complain when the pit really gets going, and they end up with someone on top of them, or they get crushed against the stage. I'm assuming you've been to your share of shows, so you know what to expect when you're up front. Yes? If you don't like the idea of someone ending up on top of you, maybe up front is not the place for you, (No offense.) but you should expect that that could happen, and when it does you shouldn't complain. You should know that's part of going to a punk show. Like it or not.
Obviously, nobody puts Kirby in a corner, he is going dance! Oddly, a pet peeve of mine is people who seriously use the word “pit”, but I digress! Can you think of any situation (besides a punk show) in which being “crushed” is a pleasant or acceptable (other than that weird fetish of fat people sitting on your chest thing)? Yeah, I’ve been to shows and I realize that a few angst filled males are going to try to self-impose their will on others, but I try to not let that ruin it for me. I figure if I try to pull down/take off shoes, scream “YOU ARE LANDING ON PEOPLE” that maybe a meathead might not stage-dive again, or at least it will take them a little longer to do it again. I wish you could see people’s faces when they hear what I say, they have that dazed “Dude, bro, what the fuck, landing on people?”. These guys are truly puzzled that I might not want them to jump from an elevated surface onto my neck/back/side of my head.
I need to check the “What to expect at a punk show” book again because I remember “Only talk to people you know”, “Wear all black” “talk loudly during quiet parts of songs” but don’t remember “Prepare to be involved in arial melee combat at any time” being in there or “Don’t complaining about anything, you fucking pussy”.
Fuck... I'm 51 and I was in the middle of all of that, dancing and singing my ass off. My knees are iffy, but that's not going to stop me from dancing--and no, that's not some tuff-guy shit. Simply put; the music moves me so I want to be in the middle of it all. However, I know that there's a chance I could end up getting kicked, or have someone land on top of me. In fact, I expect it. If and when it happens I'm not going to complain because it was my choice to be there. I've had friends leave shows with broken noses. I've lost teeth when someone kicked me in the mouth after diving on top of me. In the end though, I didn't complain because, again, I expect that that could happen if I go up front, and after going to I don't know how many shows I know that's the risk I'm taking.
Good job of outwitting Darwin for 51 years, I’m sure it’s been a battle.
Again, I think you are interchanging “dancing” and “stage diving”. While I didn’t really say anything about “dancing”, if you consider dancing clearing a 10’ circle around you while you stagger with an open mouth, panting and randomly swinging your arms around every time someone enters your “punx dance zone”, then yeah I think you are a meathead caveman. I consider “dancing” to be leaning, jumping, pushing etc in a very small area near you that doesn’t displace massive amounts of people.
If you honestly expect to lose teeth or get a broken nose at a punk show, I just don’t know what to say. I guess you and your crew of infirmed punk friends have good insurance? Or is having insurance not punk? I keep forgetting what is punk and what isn’t. I almost had to get rid of my microwave until I found out NoFX still uses them on their tour buses to heat up their rolling papers. Anyway.
I expect to hear a band play music at a show and to leave with maybe a shirt, buzz or ringing ears. Not a displaced shoulder blade or a Converse footprint on the side of my face.
It's about personal responsibility. You can't control whether or not someone will dive on top of you, but what you can control is where you stand. It's pretty simple. Don't call the guy who jumped on you an asshole, or whatever you did, because he was doing what he felt like.
You have a distorted view of “personal responsibility”. “Yo dude, if you weren’t such a dongbag and stood in the way of my bullet, then you wouldn’t have gotten shot now would you”. “Well, Mr. Smarty Pants, since you decided to stop at a red light and I didn’t, it’s clear to see that you are at fault for me smashing into the back of your car and sending your head through the windshield”. Blame the victim much? I think the person attempting to jump off an elevated surface onto people should think try practice personal responsibility and maybe do some push-ups or crunches instead? The club seems to think it’s bad idea because some people that get hurt could sue the punk out of them.
Christ man... isn't that, in part, what punk is about: doing your own thing?
Actually, I think that is not what punk is about, that is about being selfish. I think punk was/is about recognizing when and drawing attention to and attempting to fix things that are broken/fucked/status quo/hateful etc. Obviously, DIY is a massive part of that, but I think it’s about trying to be inclusive and welcoming. A “pit” and “stage diving” is mainly just “boy’s fun” and not about anything other than making sure you can get your Johnny Castle on, not caring how it impacts others. Again, I do expect shoving/leaning/pushing during the songs, that is not “Stage diving”.
Call it selfish if you have to, but lets be real, you know it happens. Blaming someone else for what happens to you because of your decision to stand where you were is shit.
Something tells me your last name is not Matlock? This whole “if you are in front of the stage, you are fair game” not coming from a teenage male jock is just baffling to me? You said 51 not 15 right?
There are plenty of places in that club to stand where you can take great pix, and you don't have to worry about this sort of thing. Maybe that would be a better place to be if you're intent is to take pictures, rather than dance. Again, this has nothing to do with tuff-guy shit, but don't try and tell someone else how they should dance, or react to the music. (For the record; the guy who jumped on top of you was not removed from the club, as signs would indicate.)
I collect dumb shit, flyers, records, set lists, memories, zines. I took a photo for that reason, I didn’t expect to get a good photo standing where I was. Holding up your cell phone for 10m is another topic, but I don’t want to get into that. If my earlier post made it sound like I was grumpy I didn’t get a pristine shot of Swiz, that was not the case. I dunno if the guy was thrown out or not. If anything the club would be at fault (I think?). I already have an open PIP case in Florida, so I don’t think I could have pursued anything as this was after the fact, although I saw the dude on the video, but I think it would be the club’s fault and the last thing I would want to do is cause Dante or anybody that works at the club grief.
I don't know what happened to alot of the old guys in D.C., but at some point many of them seem to have decided that dancing isn't OK any longer.
I’m pretty it’s called “growing up and realizing that just because you did dumb shit in your life you don’t have to keep doing it or allow it to happen”. Again, you switched from “stagediving” to “dancing”, two different things.
Well fuck that! If the music moves me I'm dancing! And fuck anyone who tries to tell me how I should react to the music! If you want to tell me well, that's selfish... I can live with that, but it won't change how the music makes me feel.
Awesome dude, dance the night away! Dance on the ceiling if you want (just don’t fall on top of the people!). Get crazy and moonwalk! Check out Verbal Assault’s “More Than Music” while you are at it!
I'm not going to stand there with my thumb up my ass and my phone in the air when the music makes me want to dance.
Sounds like a good time to me? Different strokes for different folks!
I, and everyone else here is forced to live with rules dicating our behavior, but the last thing I want is someone telling me what is an appropriate way to react to the music I'm listeing to. Again, that's shit.
Fuck the rules man!
If you're OK with Shawn jumping on you, why no one else? What's the difference? That sounds a bit hypocritical to me.
Um, Shawn is creating “art”. If I went to a Pollack painting show and he flicked paint on me, I’d understand. If a lumbersexual brought a can of paint and threw it on me, I’d be pissed. Shawn is part of the band and is actively expressing himself and I give him creative license to emotionally/physically respond however he feels. I think this is part of the problem, stage divers think they are part of the show or should be allowed to be. I’ve “stage-dived” once in 1989 at Youth Of Today show, I was upfront getting crushed and there was a steady stream of people stage diving. They covered Minor Threat and I was so fucking stoked, Ray was right in front of me so I climbed on the back of a dude to sing into the mic. I then realized I was on the stage and wanted to quickly get down, so I was about to jump and noticed that nobody was looking at me and that I’d be landing on some dude’s head, so I did the lamest lay-down and gently fall back into the crowd thing ever. On stage, it took me 2 seconds to realize that I didn’t want to be that kind of dick. After the show some people I went with were counting and reliving their stage dives and high-fiving each other. That just reaffirmed me this was a variation of jocks talking about tackles during a football game and I wanted nothing to do with it. Is that really that hard to understand?
Oh... and saying this is just some kind of tuff-guy shit, and then saying you're going to punch guys in the cock... which are you today: the pot or the kettle.
Ok, when I said punch, I really meant visually fondle, and when I said cock, I meant the twig AND berries. So what I meant to say was that I was going to attempt to sexually molest anybody that I could, with my eyes. As I said earlier, I try to remove their shoes/pull them down. Both attempts at slowing them down because I know they are dead-set on repeat jumping/diving. It’s in their DNA man! Seriously, I do think this is mainly a male thing and it does discourage girls or smaller people or big people that don't want to be put into an awkward situation to be near the front of stage/band. That is just dumb and not very inclusive.
Look Mr. K... I'm glad you were there, and happy that, for the most part, you enjoyed yourself. I was there and thoroughly enjoyed myself as well. However, I gotta wonder, to quote NoFX, "when did punk rock become so safe?"
Whelp, you’ve quoted NoFX, you’ve got me! Look, I own a few NoFX records but they are frat-boy humor with muted bar chord mosh sing-a-longs. Quoting them is like farting into the wind, mildly amusing.
Just roll with it, and if you get kicked, knocked down, or whatever, pick your ass up and keep singing, but for the love of God don't complain when you do get knocked down, because you knew it could happen.
I get it... you want to watch the bands play without worrying about whether or not someone is going to jump on top of you. All I'm saying is that there are places to stand where you won't have to worry about that, other than up front, in the middle of the chaos. Where you choose to stand is on you, but accept that you chose to stand where you did, and that, if you do choose to be in the middle of the fray, you assume the risks that come with being there.
How about you stage diving dudes go to the back of the club and get a pig-pile on and beat each other senseless? What gives you the right to be closer to the stage? You obviously don’t care about watching the band? Why is it that you feel you should push smaller, weaker people to the sides? Should everyone go stand next to the girls that are holding their boyfriends bomber jackets? I get that music can be a release and people want to respond to it, just have some decorum and don’t be a fucking spazz about it? Hell, do you know where Rites of Sping (who if they were a band in 2014 would be a big stage diver fans) got their name from? There was a ballet in 1913 in Paris that had dancing and music that was so different that the crowd fucking rioted (just like a NoFX show). So obviously, I understand that music has the ability to hit a nerve and cause a reaction. Just try not to be a dongbag and jump from an elevated surface into a crowd that is not expecting or wanting it, mmmmkay?
I dunno, we are talking in Circles (had to get a Dag Nasty reference in here) and even I think I’ve written enough (a first).
Please believe me that I know I come off as heavy-handed and relentless online, I’m not really that way in person, I’m not foaming at the mouth and clinching my teeth when I respond to you. Like 10 times, I made personal jabs that I didn't mean, I just was trying to bring some humor into this post. I realize “internet arguing” is pointless, it’s just the asperger-ish part of me to not let things go. At the end of the day, “stage diving” is just a blip of annoyance to me and I have many other awesome things going on in my life to not worry about it. I’m just a sucker when I look at a wall of text directed at me. It’s my kryptonite.
So Happy Christmas Kirby! I hope Santa brings you and your other punk friends their new front teeth, new front teeth, cause all the old stage-diving punks want for Christmas is their new front teeeeeeeeeth !
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