Mosh Pit Rant

So we went to the Rage Music Fest yesterday. It was a long day. It was fun. But I want to rant for a bit about mosh pits. I'll do that after a quick review of the bands we saw.

We left at 10 am to drive to the "other side". We all live in the East Valley and the show was held at the Castles and Coasters amusement park clear on the other side of Phoenix, so it was a good drive to even get out there. Rage Fest is a 2 day Christian Music Festival featuring all different varieties of Christian Music. Worship music, punk music, hardcore music. All of it basically on 3 different stages. Live bands continuously from 11 am to 11 pm on Saturday and Sunday. We attended yesterday which was Saturday.

Patty and myself, Robert and Angela, Mark and Andy and their friend TJ, Mac, Susan B. and Merideth, Jaret and Madison were all of the folks from Amadeo that went.

The first band we saw on the main stage was Nevertheless. Kind of a skater punk type band. They were good, just not my style. After them on the main stage was a heavy band called Decypher Down. I really liked them a lot.

Then we took a walk across the street to the mall and the food court to grab a bite to eat. After that we came back to the main stage to see Tree 63, a worship type band from Australia. They were very good also. They had to fight through some sound problems but eventually smoothed everything out.

Then we went over to the second stage to see Red. A band called Future Forestry was playing the end of their set and they were interesting. A very new age kind of style music. Red came on after them and we were sandwiched somewhere in the middle and a lot of folks were there to see these guys. They probably should have played the main stage. They were pretty hard and we enjoyed them a lot.

We left Red's set to head over to the main stage to see the band I really came to see, Project 86. We made it up front. Not dead center, but all the way up front and to the left of center a little bit. Project 86 is pretty hardcore and I knew it was going to be a bit rough. The brave souls were Patty and I, and Jaret and Madison. Before they even came onstage the MC made an announcement about some of the smaller kids up front and said that if folks are going to mosh, please keep it away from the stage. Well it was okay near the beginning but got insane from the middle to the end of the set. They were very good live and we had a blast, but the moshing was just way too much, especially at a Christian show. The very last song was just totally insane. A kid about 14 or so fell to the ground in front of me during the moshing and side to side pushing and never came back up. I reached down and pulled his arm and got him back up. What I saw was pretty gross to say the least. It looked like the lower part of his jaw was broken. I grabbed him and pushed him through the crowd with me to the outside and finally found someone to direct me to the medical tent. One of his friends came with us so I left him with the medics and then went back to my group.

When people get hurt, moshing is NOT COOL! I guess you can say it is expected when you are up in the front, but regardless, things should not get out of hand like they do. I pray that this kid will be okay. I am also thankful that nobody from our group got hurt.

This "old man" is pretty sore today though. But I still had a good time. It was cold too. I never got warm until Project 86 came on. Then it was just the moving and body heat that kept me warm.

Be Moved!