Concert Fear

The idea of a concert, in itself, is pretty simple. You go, a band plays, you dance about a lot and scream like a wild animal, with intensity variable by how much you like the band, and with optional sex and drugs to accompany your rock’n’roll, although preferably save any sex until you're at home and in private (don't be silly, wrap your willy). Loads of people manage it every day, thousands when there’s a festival, so surely it can’t be that difficult, right?

But then, what if you are, like me, a stereotypically socially awkward teenager with a paralysing fear of physical contact? How do you cope? How do you handle going into a place where you are pressed closer to complete strangers than you tend to be to your own parents on a daily basis, and where you’re going to have to talk to those strangers at some point, very confidently and very loudly. Both of those are things I don’t like doing. It’s only the past year or so that I’ve been able to order my own food in restaurants, and I still don’t have a 100% success rate with that either.

My first ‘proper’ concert was The Blackout in November 2011. I queued up for about five hours, I think. When we got in there, I ended up riiiggghhttt where all the crazy people go, and someone put their hands very deliberately in my armpits (is that a thing?). I panicked when people started going crazy, because I couldn’t move and there were strangers and that sets off my fight or flight like nothing else, although what I chose to do was cry and sway about until Hannah fell over and we got out of the way for a bit. I hung around the back of the crazy people for a bit until some idiot decided to start crowdsurfing on the back of my head and without warning me, and then just went to the back of the room and stood there swaying in a kind of trance. I only really got into the concert mood by the last two songs, so I was just about ready to dive in and start thrashing about when they finished Higher and Higher. Maybe not the best loss of concert virginity, but I did get an awesome t-shirt out of it.

The first concert where I managed to get fully into the pit  - although, given the band, it wasn’t as mental as I’ve heard some can be – was The Cribs last October. I went with a friend who is significantly shorter than me (most people are) and I was quite worried for the first half of the concert that she wasn’t really enjoying herself because she couldn’t see, but then she pulled me into the pit and made me put my hand on the back of a sweaty fat man, and it was all fine. That sounds very wrong.

I can’t say I know how it goes at other kinds of concerts, for hip-hop artists and pop groups and stuff, because the way fans treat each other seems to differ somewhat from genre to genre. However, I’d say that there are some basic rules that they all follow, which are most evident in the rock and metal genres, possibly because of the infamous MOSH PIT (dun dun dunnnn!)

Everyone knows about mosh pits. Maybe they don’t know what they’re for, but they know what they look like – lots of arms and legs and thrashing about, maybe a few people crowd-surfing over the top and inevitably falling off the back of the crowd. Sounds kind of scary. Looks quite scary too, when you go and see the absolute nutters that constitute the average pit. I am good friends with several of those types and they’re just as scary in broad daylight, possibly more so because there aren’t a load of other people leaping about around them to disguise their insanity.

Basically, though, concerts, and especially mosh pits, are very scary places if you are a noob like myself. You really love the band, you want to get in there and lose control and let out your inner fangirl and vomit glitter and hard rock all over the place, but they start playing and then there’s a load of seven-foot-tall behemoths doing an impression of particle fusion and you can’t enjoy the music because you’re absolutely terrified that you’re going to end up being crushed to death. That’s on top of the fear that anyone’s going to touch you at all, which is kind of a bummer if you’re in the middle of a crowd.

However, mosh pits do have rules – of course they do, they couldn’t happen if there were none. Of course there’s always some douchebag who doesn’t listen, but usually if you call them out then the nicer people will get them away from you. It can be a very dangerous place, and most people are understanding of that.

1. This is probably the most obvious and also the most important. If someone falls, GET THEM OUT. Lift them up, move out of the way so they can get out and get some air, help them along, draw people’s attention to them so they can help too. At one concert, I saw a girl get dragged out because she couldn’t breathe before the main act had even started. At The Blackout, my friend Hannah fell over with a load of other people, so we had to sort through them to find her. If they’re not hurt, let them go. If they are, get someone to help you get them out of the way and to some medical help.
2.  Lift people out. If they’re trying to get out of the crowd and can’t, pull them out. If they need to get help, ask them and then get people to help you surf them to the front, where the security is. If they happen to end up on stage, that’s still probably alright, because most bands are nice people and probably won’t mind a fan momentarily lying on the stage so they don’t get hurt.
3. No grabby hands. Just because someone is standing very close to you and is sweating a lot does not mean that they want you to put your hands on their boobs and/or crotch. Just because it’s a woman (gasp) in somewhat revealing clothes (GASP) at a concert (GASP) jumping about and sweating (faint) does not mean she is there for you to grope, unless she specifically comes up to you and says so – and she’s not off her face, which you should be responsible enough to judge. That’s just a general rule for when you’re out in public, but applies especially to concerts. Don’t think because it’s dark and enclosed that it’s ok. It’s not. Same goes for touching guys as well. If they don’t want it, you don’t do it.
4. Don’t fight. You’re there to dance, not to prove how macho you are.
5. Remember that it’s a mosh pit you’re going into. Don’t be one of those people who dresses up all smart in high heels and stuff for gigs if you plan on really going for it. There’s going to be people getting catapulted all over the place, and chances are they might accidentally grab your clothes to stop themselves falling, so wear light clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty, and wear comfortable shoes that won’t come off, ‘cause you’re not getting that shoe back. Don’t take bags or glasses or anything in there with you, because you’ll probably get it dropped and smashed. At the Blackout gig, my other friend Alix managed to somehow accidentally drop her phone on Hannah’s head in such a way that it bounced off and hit some girl in the face. The phone worked fine, but Alix won’t let her live it down.
6.  Help out the little people. Small people do exist and they do go to concerts (shocking, isn't it. I endured about 45 minutes of one next to a girl who was about five feet tall and insisted on talking to her boyfriend in a very loud, shrill kind of babytalk that made me want to throw her bodily into the crowd), and it’s not good when some massive guy crowdsurfs right over their head and it’s down to them to heave his buttocks off their face. If you can, pick them up and move them along. Some guy did that for me at The Cribs last October, but he also offered to buy me a drink so I think there was a hidden agenda there.
7.  DRINK LOTS OF WATER BUT DON’T PISS YOURSELF. It gets very hot in there. At the very least in the venues I’ve been to, they serve water at the bar all through the gig as a matter of health and safety, and I think it’s free. If not, it’s water – if you’re white and middle class in a rich country, like me (so basically less than 1% of the world population, if I remember correctly, and just to give this a little touch of social justice) then it’s not going to be that expensive, is it?

So there you go. Some basic, presumably obvious rules of concerts. It is somewhat comforting to know that, even though they may look like they’ve been possessed by Satan, the people in the pit are, on the whole, obeying etiquette and will swiftly remove any idiot who doesn’t.

However, there are some other things that I find have at least helped me on my various ventures deeper into the crowd. Between songs, it helps to kind of lift your head upwards to try and get a bit of air, because it does get quite hard to breathe in there. Also, reminding yourself that you are going to be in physical contact does help. Mainly, if you’re panicking a bit purely because there’s people around you, just focus on the music and go mental and you’ll find that most people will back off a bit. Also, if you go quite close to the front – mosh pits generally start a bit further back – then you’re near security, and people are a little bit more restrained. Plus, you can hang around the least popular band member. It sounds mean, and it is, but there will be one (probablythebassist) who doesn’t have as tightly packed a group of fans as the others. Apparently for MCR it’s Ray Toro, which is kind of sad cause he’s the lead guitarist and actually awesome.

Talking to strangers is something I haven’t quite worked out, but just rest assured that the main words and phrases you will need at a concert are:

• ·         Yes I’m eighteen
• ·         Excuse me
• ·         That t-shirt
• ·         Large/medium/small
• ·         OH MY GOD ITS THEM
• ·      AERGWTGWILGRJTIGJKRJRKLGJWLGJKMVRKLFMERKGWMGRKLGMEKLGMERLGM
• ·         PLAY (insert favourite song by act here)

And the last three are innate and will come out of you very loud and high-pitched, whether you want to say them or not. If they don’t then there’s something wrong with you.

So that is my attempt at 'how to survive concerts'. I am, however, still terrified by them. I'm hoping I can find some massive, lumberjack-sized friend who also likes Of Mice And Men, so that when they come back over here (they better come back over here) I can go and see them, because it seems that Austin Carlile (vocals) likes to do walls of death and they don't look like something I could do too easily. Should I get into one of those and survive, I'll tell you about it.

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(image at the top I got off google, but is apparently from insiteaustin.blogspot.com. let it not be said that I take credit for other people's pictures)