To Mosh or Not to Mosh: Brockhampton
This past Saturday I found myself completely tossed around in a maelstrom of sweaty, screaming, mobbing Brockhampton fans (including myself). I walked into Boston University’s Agganis Arena fully dressed for the chill of the outside air, and throughout the show I saw myself slowly disrobing until...
This past Saturday I found myself completely tossed around in a maelstrom of sweaty, screaming, mobbing Brockhampton fans (including myself). I walked into Boston University’s Agganis Arena fully dressed for the chill of the outside air, and throughout the show I saw myself slowly disrobing until my jeans were cuffed to my knees and only one button was being put to work on my shirt. I lost my shoe at one point. It was wild. It was loud. It was a fever dream, perhaps. I couldn’t tell if I preferred putting my hair up every few minutes ー only to have my ponytail/bun come undone amidst the pit of people and my fiercely sporadic head-bobbing ー or the constant heat and sweat that my hair held in on my neck.
During some of their more hype songs (about half of the setlist was off their newest album, Iridescence, the other half comprised of their most crowd pleasing bops from their three Saturation albums) I was completely powerless to the tides of people swaying and dancing all around me; it was as if everyone on the floor tacitly agreed that it was better to ride the wave than to go through it. We were packed together so tightly, pushing and bouncing around in one grand movement; everyone was falling on everyone else all at once, but there was no room to lean in any direction.
The ebb and flow of the floor naturally caused people to forcefully push on the fences separating our section of the floor from the section closer to the stage (to which the security responded with muted and directionless orders at the masses of people ー a habitual, angry miming, “back away from the partitions!” ー which was pretty much impossible for any one individual to react to).
The only breaks from this communal dance/sweat/movement occurred in the brief moments between songs, when Kevin Abstract (the main spokesperson/founder of Brockhampton) incited the people on the floor of the stadium to open up large areas of space (AKA “the pit”) to be used by the most diehard crowd members to mosh in (a sort of intersection between music and… football/boxing/trampolines/colosseum).
Somehow there was enough room for everyone to spread out, creating a seemingly perfect circle that I always found myself on the wall of (and shortly after, the center of). The most ambitious of concert-goers would be bouncing around in the middle of the 20-foot-wide pit before the beat was even close to dropping, and as the crescendo of each respective song approached, the energy surrounding the circle would grow more and more volatile until the structure completely imploded… with a single beat. About twenty of us fall into the open space. Arms in front, ready to push. I saw everything and nothing in short flashes between the epileptic lighting and my hair that was… everywhere. I only got elbowed in the face once, miraculously.
Oh…and the music was great too.
I should note that this was not at all what I had anticipated for my first Brockhampton experience… I actually was never able to buy floor tickets. Pretty much everyone I knew who had already seen them told me not to go if I couldn’t get on the floor of the stadium. They said that it wouldn’t be worth it to stand in the cheap-seats the whole show. They were most definitely right.
Originally I went into the show thinking I was going to write an article about being a huge fan of BH, stuck in the stadium seats. When I first got into the stadium I was sitting about a football field away from all the action, and two stories above it. It was still awesome to be there (nothing can stop that excitement of seeing one’s favorite living boy-band, no matter the distance), but I was determined to get down to the floor to dance… to mosh. I should also note that there were at least two security personnel at every entrance to the floor, checking for the proper ticket and colored wristbands (both of which I did not have and could not acquire). I waited. I waited patiently. I schemed. I schemed some more…
Then the perfect moment arrived. (I’ll leave the specifics of the situation to the imagination…)
Long story short, I was on the floor, and it was a fabulous night.
Listen to Brockhampton’s newest album here!