Poet In The Pit: Slayer, Heavy Metal, and The Limits Of Poetry

I'm walking down Walnut Street in Philadelphia on my lunch break when I develop a pronounced limp. Welts and bruises have risen on my biceps and upper legs. A 46-year-old antiquarian bookseller who works on the top floor of the art deco Sun Oil Building, I have received hundreds of severe blows, the kind that shake the brain and rattle the spine. About 20 hours ago I waded into the middle of a massive mosh pit at a Slayer concert. My first Slayer concert was 30 years ago, and my ability to take punishment, and to heal from it, has waned. I'll be restored in a few days. After the next concert, the next summer, I'll be in recovery for nearly a month, but today I feel good. I am triumphant.

What is a mosh pit? How does one explain it to someone who has never even seen one, much less been pulled into the maelstrom? It compares with very few other experiences. Merriam-Webster offers a staid definition of "an area in front of a stage where very physical and rough dancing takes place at a rock concert." Wikipedia is a bit more helpful:

a style of dance in which participants push or slam into each other, typically performed to "aggressive" live music. It originated in the hardcore punk scenes of California and Washington, D.C., in the early 1980s, thereafter spreading from hardcore to other forms of punk rock as well as thrash metal.

Better. As often, Urban Dictionary is even more helpful, illustrating a number of types of pit, including the Closed Pit ("Tight, hard to move and hard to breathe"), Open Pit ("You can pick a target and reach them, throw them across the floor, punch them, barge them [sic]"), and Circle Pit ("Run around in an empty circle punching those on the outside of the circle and pushing the runner in front until he either leaves or falls to be trodden on …"). Though the etymology of "mosh" remains somewhat murky, Merriam-Webster traces the word to 1983, possibly an "alteration of mash," as it appeared in early hardcore zines. The band Anthrax was instrumental in popularizing the term for larger audiences.

A Slayer pit is a mixture of these three principal types, unfolding in a completely unpredictable and dangerous manner in pitch darkness split by blinding white flashes from strobe lights. The closest non-concert experience I've had was during a protest march in 2003 that rammed me up against police barricades in Manhattan with a crush of thousands behind who were unaware that those in the vanguard were trapped at the barriers. Your own body becomes lost in the animal movement of a great mass. Panic sets in at first when you are crushed; it gets hard to breathe, you lose your footing and find yourself lifted off the ground by the pressure of crowded bodies. It is also invigorating. Metal shows always have this insane press, closer to the stage. The pit is a more merciless environment precisely because you can move. You must move. It is impossible to explain why anyone would willingly choose to enter such a situation at all, much less for an hour or more. Heroic quantities of beer, gallons of it, help to produce the correct attitude, of course. Also, the volume and intensity of the music heightens the corporal instincts. The fiercest thrill arrives from the combination of total physical exertion accompanied by sometimes total loss of bodily control. Slayer creates these conditions on every occasion, quickly and reliably.

________

Recently, Slayer performed at the end of a two-day hard rock and heavy metal festival called Rock Allegiance Fest, held at Talen Energy Stadium in Chester, Pennsylvania. The day is sweltering, hellishly humid. For the festival, the soccer field itself is opened up for the audience. This allows for far more bodies than the 18,500 seats would suggest. Inside the stadium, the well-tended grass of the playing field is preserved from damage by an UltraDeck synthetic turf...