Moshpit Culture

In a Seattle moshpit a woman gets a boot in the head and spends the night hooked up to a heart monitor.

At Woodstock 1999 there are allegedly four rapes in the moshpit.

A 19-year-old girl dies at a Hole gig in Sweden. Nine die at a Pearl Jam concert in Denmark. Injuries are part of the deal. Kids go into the pit to risk life and limb. They're part of a global underworld with complex attitudes and beliefs.

Their heroes (Marilyn Manson, Korn, Slipknot) preach bleak messages: we're here to suffer and die.

We work for the destruction of society. What is a moshpit? A cesspool of teenage rage and violence or, as the kids in the pit would have it, a unity of peers, an extension of modern alternative youth and music culture?

A little of both according to author Joe Ambrose, who has spent five years in the pit talking to the fans and the bands.

In this shocking investigation of contemporary rock culture, Ambrose aims to reveal a world of appalling violence and remarkable tenderness.

He reports on the full scale riots and near death experiences which are part and parcel of live music in the 21st century.

He says moshing is a unique interaction between artists and fans. He acclaimed the spirit of fraternity which makes sense of the moshpit and explains its fatal attraction.