Punters and audiences have always and will always play one of the most significant roles in a concert by actively listening and engaging with the musicians, as well as creating the tone and atmosphere for the entire event. Why then, do people insist on encouraging and partaking in aggression while watching a band that they paid to see?

I feel like that this type of audience interaction came out of Punk music, as Punk thrived on man’s primal instincts, usually perceived to be anger and aggression. If you look at early performances of Iggy and the Stooges (even if they are ‘pre-Punk’) and then the bands that defined Punk such as The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash you can see the complete anarchy and chaos involved in their concerts, but welcomed and encouraged by the bands themselves.

I know that this type of audience interaction may have been part of the Punk experience thirty years ago, why does it continue to happen to bands who are not part of the Punk movement? At the 2001 Big Day Out, At the Drive-In performed before Limp Bizkit, where the infamous mosh pit crushed a girl to death. During At the Drive-In’s show, their frontman, Cedric Bixler-Zavala stopped and addressed the audience, “[I]t’s a very, very sad day when the only way you can express yourself is through slam dancing… You learnt that from the T.V… You’re a robot, you’re a sheep.” It is completely beyond me why people insist on creating mosh pits or death circles; they are so dangerous, as well as the fact that someone has paid money to see the band perform, but they do not even get to listen to the music because they are fighting or fending off others. At the Drive-In could obviously see the potentiality of the aggression in the audience that day, and felt the need to address it. I suppose you are probably smart to expect ‘death circles’ at metal concert, but surely not at Incubus, the Foo Fighters, and on a lesser scale, British India. Early last year, Josh Homme, front man of Queens of the Stone Age, had to make a public apology for abusing one of his fans during the Norwegian Wood Festival. While Homme’s use of the word ‘faggot’ understandably was not taken well, he was fighting with one of the crowd for continuously throwing things on stage, namely, a shoe. The shoe seems to be a popular choice to throw at bands. Why do people throw things on stage; are they so overcome with excitement that that is how they express themselves? Or do they actually not like the band? And if that is the case, I suggest not paying to go and see them.

Maybe bands and musicians are too precious now, according to the Punk mentality, but if the bands do not claim to be punk bands and are spending their time playing music for us, maybe we should just shut up and listen… and even save a shoe.