Showing posts with label mosh pit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mosh pit. Show all posts

Friday, March 21, 2008

200.

And there they stood. The few against the many. They knew that they did right and that's all they cared to know. The General was not there to lead them but they did it the way they knew how.

After all these years, Welcome to post #200. I know it took a while to get here but it's here.

A few years ago I was working in a concert venue. It was a slightly busy night and I was fairly new to the staff. Being the new guy I got the crap position. Well, they called it the crap position, to me it was the best seat in the house. It was the spot near the stage.

I thought it was the best spot because I got to see the show. I also got to be the one staff member to control the mosh pits and idiots. When I say one staff member I mean one staff member. I was the only person in the middle of a pit unless it got really sloppy. Which was one of the best feelings at the time.

I would step out into the pit and let it go. As soon as anyone touched me they got thrown out quickly. It usually entailed throwing them into a choke hold and dragging them behind me. If they're friend wanted to say anything or try to stop me then they would go under the other arm.

On one particular night there was a bigger problem. The band on stage brought up a friend from the crowd to help perform a song. As I watched the band pull him up from the front of the stage I had a feeling it was going to be a problem. The friend was very drunk.

After a few verses he was starting to jump around on stage and lose his balance. Next thing you know he trips and he gets caught by the audience. They push him back up and I walk out into the crowd. As I turn to look around I catch a glimpse of him running towards the front of the stage.

He stage dives.

No one catches him.

So I do what I believe is right. I grab him, make sure he's awake and check him out. He's fine. So I hook him under the arm pit and brace his forearm and I start walking him to the back door. Yes, I'm throwing him out for the night.

From behind me someone grabs my shirt. They start pulling me back. Then I feel another set of hands grab my other shoulder. I start to get pulled down. I step backwards and swing my open arm back, hoping that my elbow will make contact with who ever is pulling on me. It didn't and I lost balance. The drunk idiot and I both go down.

The two men that pulled me back started helping their friend get back up. Then the calvary arrived. Two former employees came out of the crowd and grabbed the guys that pulled me down. I once again grabbed the drunk idiot. As we started ushering the three out, more of their friends came out of the crowd. As more of them came out, more of us came out. Security, bartenders, barbacks, and even the sound guys all came running.

Next thing you know it was 12 -15 people all wrestling each other for control. Punches were thrown, police were called and people were arrested. The band even stopped playing during it all.

Half an hour before it all started the Head Doorman, TD, had gone home early because it was a mediocre night. He didn't think anything was going to happen. The next day when TD and I worked together he complimented me on a job well done. He also said that he wouldn't be going home too early on any more shifts that I worked.

Later down the road, I'd find out that those men were the security staff from a different venue. I also found out that they were all fired from their venue. The owner of that venue found out about the incident and didn't care for how they represented him.

It was my second shift at this venue. It proved to be one of the funnest venues I've worked at so far.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Don't Tread

We had a fairly busy metal night at the venue. These nights usually start with rejecting many underage kids and keeping a few fake Ids at the door. Honestly, we don't care if it's your sisters ID or your brothers. They can get them back from which ever state they are issued from.

That's right kids, even if it's real but not you we take them away. I'm sure we've made some mistakes somewhere along the line but if you look that much different than your ID then you need to get a new one anyways.

The night went fairly well. There weren't a lot of trouble makers in the crowd. The night went by pretty good. Then came the second to last band out of the five. They've played the venue a few times and each time theres a pit.

For anyone who might read this and isn't into the metal scene or has no idea what a pit is here we go. There are a lot of different pits that could really happen but the most common is the norm. Basically, it's just a lot of shoving and throwing people into other people. This is a pretty tame pit. We don't get the hardcore slam pits like we used to after last year and we were throwing out 15 to 20 people a night.

I took my normal position on the outskirts of the crowd when the band started just to see if anything might happen. Nothing exciting was happening at the time so I walked back to the front and asked another person to watch the door downstairs while I was upstairs.

As I walked back up to the crowd I noticed one of my guys had a pretty good hold on a man in the pit area. At this time my man was giving him the one warning statement. It was about then that another man jumped up and elbowed my guy in the back and jumped away hiding behind some people. Startled, my guy looked around but didn't see the guy that did it.

I then walked up behind the man and firmly placed my hand on the back of his neck. This guy was probly about 6'5" and somewhere around 220 pounds or more. He turned to see me and was about to start the normal bullshit of "What I didn't do anything" when I just turned my flashlight on in his eyes and wrapped my arm around him and walked him to the side of the room towards the door.

Once he figured out what was going on he started to put up a little more of a fight.

guy - "Man, whats your problem? I was just having a little fun!"
me - "No one has fun at our expense. You wanna try to make a joke out of us? Lets do it outside."
guy - "Fine with me bitch, I'll kick your ass!!"

With that he walked outside, I smiled, waved good bye and closed the door on him.

As I walked back towards the front of the stage I just laughed to myself. Some people really fall for that. I then took my position again in the middle of the pit where nothing happened the rest of the night. Sometimes you just have to make an example out of one person and the rest fall into place.

Part of me kinda misses the nights we had last summer. We were actually throwing out about 10 to 15 people at every metal show. I think the record is 26 people in one night. I would even carry two people out at a time. I guess the word spread pretty quick or people just started noticing how big our staff was physically at that time.

Of course not all the people were for moshing. They were also for smoking pot, doing drugs in the bathrooms, or people screwing all over the place. Even had a couple once that thought they'd be hidden enough behind the cigarrette machine. I guess dude forgot he'd have to be standing up.

Some people have offered bribes to get to stay in and one even offered his girlfriend. Any woman that would go along with that I wouldn't want anyways.

So make sure your IDs look real and don't try to go after a security guy in the pit. If there's one in there you know there's another.