Punk rocks

I've just been to see the Stiff Little Fingers - just plain ol' Fingers to those in the know (which is not me by the way) - with my friend Suzie as part of our 'as many gigs as we can fit in before she gives birth' campaign. Both Suzie and I are rock fans, although Suzie is definitely on the punk rock side, whilst I'm, as you are probably already aware, firmly on the progressive rock side. This is actually my second punk gig in a month, having also been to see The Buzzcocks a few weeks ago. On both occasions, due to Suzie's expectant status (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it), we have managed to secure seating in the gallery - at the Buzzcocks gig this was in fact on a very comfortable sofa. Lovely.

This meant that at both gigs we had an excellent view, not only of the band on stage, but also of the crowd below us: The Mosh Pit. Now given that I have only just lost my punk gig cherry, the mosh pit has been a source of complete fascination to me. In fact, at both gigs, I spent more time watching the moshing than the bands. It's just so violent! It looks like a huge brawl and I just thank my lucky stars I'm not down in it. But then, on the other hand, the more you watch it, the more you realise that there's obviously a 'mosh code' to which they all abide, and it is (largely) good-natured. I mean, when someone falls over (not an uncommon occurrence) the four or five people around them automatically help them up - then start shoving them over again, of course. And everyso often, you will see two people facing each other, pushing, grimacing, head-butting and gripping each other's arms in what looks like the beginnings of something nasty, and then 10 seconds later they're hugging and all smiles. It's very strange. There's obviously some songs that set it off more than others - when the first few chords of one of these particular songs began, Suzie would turn to me and say 'Oh watch them now, they'll go mental' and sure enough, a few seconds later frenzy ensued. Occasionally someone would appear to rise above the crowd - never quite saw how it happened, it was almost ethereal - and surf along, legs and arms akimbo, until the bouncers at the front of the stage picked them up - tenderly, the way you'd carry a small child - and escorted them past the front of the stage and then released them back at the side of the venue, allowing them to run back round and get straight back into the mosh pit and repeat the process. We saw one guy do exactly that 7 times in a row. Anyway, when Suzie offered to take me moshing one day once the little 'un's born, I politely declined. She asked me if you ever saw a bit of moshing at Marillion gigs and I pointed out that you sometimes get some rather vigorous nodding and, rather than have someone flick lit fag butts at you (which I witnessed this very eve), you might risk getting slightly warmed by the end of someone's pipe. But no actual moshing, no.

On the way there, by the way, we saw Nicholas Burns (aka Nathan Barley) and the AWESOME KG from Tenacious D, both just walking down Oxford Street. We even followed KG for a while, but couldn't bring ourselves to speak to him - whaddya say?