Mosh NNF 2024

Earplugs distributed at the entrance, merch stand next to the bar, drum kit on stage, atmospheric mix of darkness and light… we could be forgiven for thinking we are actually going to a gig. Except we’re not. We’re seated, for one, sideways of the pit. Our role is clearly set - we are spectators, outsiders about to study moshers like anthropologists stumbling upon a lost tribe on some remote island. Except some, maybe even most of the audience, have once belonged to this tribe, even if ephemerally.

The music starts and stops. It’s definitely not a gig. Five moshers take it in turn to explain the rituals, unwritten rules and castes of their community, while recordings of mosh pit veterans regularly treat us to real-life testimonies – often with a fair bit of humour and palpable emotion. What is striking is that despite the similarities everyone seems to have a different and sometimes contradictory take on the subject. We’re told that moshing is the thrill of fighting another human without the fear, that moshers look out for each other, but also that there are “mad bastards” and “karate choppers” in the pit that will headbutt, kick or elbow you in the face. I remember thinking that to me, it would be more accurate to say that moshing is fighting against 50 other human beings, with constant fear in your belly.

At times, the show does feel like a themed poetry night with (very impressive) dancing interludes. I must admit I found it quite intriguing to hear what seems to be an intrinsically non-intellectual, primal human activity whose all point seems to be to enable the partakers to disconnect their brains and let it all out in the pit being dissected, analysed and conceptualised in this way. It was also quite puzzling to see the 5 performers frantically moshing around and to still feel like an outsider, mesmerised by the spectacle, but without any urge to join them. Especially as someone who has experienced moshing and felt the exhilarating, uncontrollable energy that goes through one’s body at that moment. But I think this is the force of the show. It creates a distance between the performers and the audience that allows us to dissociate with moshing and see it with new eyes.

Rachel Ní Bhraonáin, who wrote Mosh, said she discovered moshing quite recently, not as a passionate, thrill-seeking teenager like most rock fans but as an adult who wanted to understand how her boyfriend could injure himself while moshing and still be raring to go back – and she seems to approach the topic from a rational, research-based angle, which struck an insteresting balance with my more visceral, romanticised viewpoint. Personally, the show brought up nostalgic memories while at the same time forcing me to take a step back and have a different perspective on them. I was quite shocked when I suddenly realised that a number of testimonies and explanations I heard at the show could very well have come out of football hooligans’ mouths. The similarity had never occurred to me before.

Admittedly it had also never occurred to me that moshers behaved like atoms in a gas. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I kind of assumed the show would operate on the same primal, energetic, physical level as moshing and for me, it was quite the opposite in the end.