I've made some rather strange observations while in the
mosh pit of the last 3 or 4
concerts I visited. Needless to say the
mosh pits at
Megadeth and
Rotting Christ made me
fear for my
life due to the size of the
leather,
jean and
spike clad styles of my seemingly
psychotic counterparts. I realized though that any bodily damage I experienced was not done purposefully, naturally there's the exception
skinhead who jumps around punching very rudely but he is naturally told off by someone bigger and badder than he at some point. They're actually quite
considerate people, I found four very large
muscular guys helping me up in my attempt at a
crowd surf despite me kicking one of them in the
head accidently, and upon my descent I was immediatly pulled up to avoid
trampling. I've also noticed this kind behaviour at quite a few
punk concerts.
On the other hand, the
groups of
posers found at more
mainstream metal concerts such as
Metallica were far more
anarchistic, groups of shorter, younger
testosterone-infested kids behaving extremely
violently and without any
consideration to others whatsoever. I found it surprising that the
underground metalheads were more gentle people moshing in unity with some sort of unwritten
code as mentioned in
mat catastrophe's writeup rather than those at the more laid back
commercial music route that
Metallica has taken.