Warped Tour, every high schooler’s summer highlight, has done the unthinkable and banned moshing.
For those not big into the scene, moshing is widely popular at rock and heavy metal concerts, and is also known as slam dancing. Essentially what happens is those in the mosh pit get way too excited and start beating the hell out of each other. Fans have left mosh pits with broken bones, scrapes, scratches, bruises and big smiles on their faces because this is their fun.
You might also like: Beastie Boys serve Monster Energy a $1.7 million beat down
Crowd surfing and stage diving are two other activities Warped banned. Mostly self-explanatory, sometimes the two acts are combined, with someone jumping off the stage into the crowd, for them to be carried over everyone’s shoulders.
While all in good fun, taking part in moshing, crowd surfing and the like is also very dangerous, as evident in the death of a concertgoer who supposedly sustained brain injuries at a Lamb of God show in the Czech Republic in 2010. The lawsuit that followed scared most bands and concert promoters, pushing them to try and prevent moshing from happening in the first place.
You might also like: Billy Corgan teams up with Tommy Lee on new album, fans say WTF?
Although some serious injuries may occur, people in the pit often know that risks come with the territory. The mosh pit can be a mean and scary place for those who can’t hold their own, but more often than not those who go in come out relatively unscathed. For festivals like Warped Tour though – now in its 19th year, moshing included – all of that might change. For the time being moshing will continue as a one of the tours trademarks, as Every Time I Die guitarist Jordan Buckley dove into the crowd so he could surf them back to the stage.
You might also like: Kurt Cobain wallet note by sarcastic Courtney “bitch with zits” Love
When you’re not busy crowd surfing, check out FilmOn Rock TV:
