As Jen and her crew were leaving, her pal Lynn pointed out the “80-year-old” bouncer who’d been positioned between the mosh pit and the stage. Jen confirmed that the guy really was old but, all the same, looked totally beefy fit.
I allowed that, for a punk show where the average age of the audience was probably around 55 (and I’m guessing on the low side), does management really need to hire a couple of 30-year-old off-duty cop beefcakes? Also, the bouncer might have looked like he had 80 years BUT, punk ages you. I mean, take a gander at Iggy Pop. He’s 79 or 80, still alive and totally rocking out but … emmmm … dude abso looks his age. Henry Rollins? He’s around 65. He looks fully fine but def 65.
While there are a range of emotions which power punk rock, like alienation, isolation, nihilism, despair, defiance, sarcasm I’d have to say that anger is the main driver. Being angry for seven decades takes a toll. It wears you the fuck down.
Also too, we all age differently. e.g., my friend Jenny out in Arizona who, by the by, is NOT a punk rocker — she’s my age (late 60s). How old does this traitorous babe look? Mid 50s and a young, in-shape, naturally beautiful mid-50s at that. Has she had “work” done? Does she wear makeup? Does she sacrifice virgin asparagus to Persephone during the autumn equinox. No, no, and not that I know of. She's utterly radiant. BITCH!
Me? While I wasn’t a punk rock performer I did go to my fair share of shows and was in a few mosh pits. I mostly stayed out of the them though. Dudes liked to throw elbows and smash off each other. It could get nasty. Me and my brain and spine surgery habituated bod felt that was prolly not cool. Ya know? (My comparatively accelerated aging could be due to my proximity to mosh pits — punk rock osmosis. That’s a thing, right? Possibly those 90 bazillion neurosurgeries had some sort of affect as well. Maybe.)
Some shows felt mosh pit safe and fine — irresistible even. Maybe those shouldn’t be classed as mosh pits though? Fer instance, every time I went to see Concussion Ensemble (who I’ve mentioned before — three drummers on different, elaborate kits plus, one percussionist playing found objects hanging from a clothing rack, the MOST amazing Rich Gilbert on lead guitar, a second guitarist and a bass player). I’d get right down front. I NEEDED to become one with the beat they were laying down. The rhythms, the bass lines — yeah baby, I had to merge with that shit on an atomic level. All of us in the pit were pogoing our asses off — practically moving as one. We were totally tuned in.
We were heated atomic particles vibrating faster and faster. We were waves on a hurricane ocean.
The only other time I experienced that was at TT the Bear’s, a smaller club. A hard funk-rock band with a KILLER horn section was playing. The club was packed tighter than a Tokyo subway car at rush hour. There wasn’t a tissue’s worth of space between any of us.
Normally this would freak me right the fuck out but, mes amis, those horns zoomed. They were tight and totally funked up. The drums were lit. The bass was sex.
Have you seen those videos of salmon swimming upstream to spawn? That was the club that night only set to music that you need to smoke a cigarette after — even if you don’t smoke.
Not a mosh pit in an ‘80s elbows throwing, ‘90s crowdsurfing punk sense but there was moshing. Mashing maybe?
Goddamnit, I miss music.
Ooh, one last thing ... Jen wanted me to point out that in the crowdsurfing pic from Sunday's Screeching Weasel show, the surfer was a youth. Dude was in his 20s. If you zoom in — take a close look at the arms ferrying him — those aren't young people arms that are holding him up. There's some awesome symbolism right there.
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