My band plays lightspeed aggressive punk influenced mostly by old (real) Misfits, old AFI and Bad Religion. The venue for our most recent show nearly qualified as a warzone. By now, I'm used to the kids crashing into us or stumbling through the cables. I've had the microphone knocked into my teeth a few times too. No big deal. I'm used to having to bob and weave through two-stepper haymakers...hell, I've even had to pick people up out of a pit during the middle of a song.

We were getting a really good response to our set, it is always nice when people learn to sing along with your choruses and "whoas", but there were supposed to be three more bands on the bill who had all pulled out, which had a few people more then pissed. For whatever reason, I had a guy continually throwing elbows and attempting to tackle me during the set. It wasn't someone knocking him into me, or him tripping, or just being into the music. He would even knock people out of the way so he could have a clear shot at me. I got tired of it after a while, and fended him off with a shrug from the guitar. After the song, he came back up front and said "I really liked that one." My response "Yeah, me too."

He came back for the next sortie with re-enforcements. I put up with the onslaught for another song. My band decided on a cover of a Misfits song for our encore, partially because it only needed one guitar which meant I'd get to have my hands free. I took up my mic and put the stand off to the side of the stage. I went through the first lines of the song, glaring at the jerk from my Misfits era Danzig stance, basically daring him to try that bullshit again. He and his assistants (wisely) decided to break rank and melt into the background. It was nice, because that let the other kids who had been up front before fill back in. It was still chaos, but at least it was friendly fire.

It was funny though, the bullshit was aimed mainly at me for some reason, but our fans actually ended up doing more damage then the troublemakers did. We burned through two mic-stands, a cable, the venue lost at least one of their P.A. speakers, and we are now down one Marshall head.

Just another night at the punk rock show.

No, I love peace , but do all of you punk rockers do that kind of thing?

So Jack Thompson's day out is a pacifist's adventure?

But really -

Mix alcohol with fast, aggressive, music, add in some enthusiasm and testosterone and shake well. The results are pretty predictable.

As for me (I don't drink, btw), I don't mind getting knocked around some during a show. In fact, at this point, considering the size of the places we're playing, it is pretty much expected. (I like those kind of shows better then the ones we've played with excessive bouncers/security. At one show, a friend of mine almost got ejected just for tossing a soft drink up to me during the set. )

The fact that it was deliberate was what bothered me.

As far as "all punk rockers" - I can only speak for myself.

I dunno but I know we're playing with a metalcore band at our next show

for still being in high school they're all pretty amazing professional sounding musicians.. but the fact that they play metalcore kinda scares me a little because of their typical crowd that they bring with them and the slam dancing and everything. I hope we can get all our equipment out of there before they strike up their first chords man.

well, I am not in a band or anything anymore, but I go to a lot of shows.

I listen to metalcore and post-hardcore stuff, so the crowds at such shows are pretty predictable. I've never actually seen somebody try to physically fight any band members, but I don't know how people are at local band sets.

That's a sucky situation for you KW, I feel for you.

Honestly I've had nothing but friendly people after performances. Compliments, a beer bought every now and then, it's all been good. There's drunk wankers but there's always drunk wankers.

Recently I was at an Aussie hip hop show and a girl bought four Jager Bombs for the two rappers on stage, and a guy next to her decided he'd try to take one. She pulled it away from him, gave it to the rapper then gave him the empty glass. He then threw it at one of the rappers on the stage and the girl cut him out - like hard. Plenty of swearing and a slap to cap it all off. Nothing like seeing a muscly douche in a wifebeater getting shut down by a skinny 5'6-5'8 girl.

I don't perform but (in my opinion) moshing is fucking stupid as hell. I go to shows to listen and enjoy the music not throw myself into a bunch of people like a dick.

I got a friend who's really into it though so, to each his own I guess.

i do all the time because i am both a band and a movie bang bang bang