'Safety first' is modern motto for mosh pits motto

Last Saturday, I was in Seattle with my two boys and a friend in a hotel room, watching a documentary on the roots of punk rock.

The concerts were often wild affairs and one incident with The Clash was particularly eye-opening, when a show was oversold in New York City in 1981 and the fans resorted to mob action on the streets when they were denied entrance.

The airing of this documentary was no small coincidence, as we were in Seattle because two nights later we had concert tickets for the floor to see the punk rock band Green Day at the Tacoma Dome.

Considering I recently heard one of their songs in its unadulterated form in the produce department of a local grocery store, I figured the fans the group attracted would not be the type to break glass bottles over each other's heads. (You rarely hear the music of the Sex Pistols, for example, while you're shopping for canned goods.)

And in these safety-conscious times, we truly had little to fear.

The general admission line at the Tacoma Dome formed early, but didn't really build until about an hour before the doors were going to open. It was a reasonably quiet group, even considering the teenage status of most concert-goers.

The energy level revved up a bit when all were sent toward the security check, but a woman walking down the middle of the crowd, waving her arms and yelling "no running," actually had an effect, as if she were a feared school hallway monitor.

The crowd was funneled into a number of lines and at the end of each one was a security person who executed a full-body frisk and a bag check on every person going into the dome - from middle-age mothers to teenage boys with mohawks. Water bottles were tossed, cameras confiscated. People board airplanes with less fanfare.

During shows of a certain musical genre, two activities - moshing and crowd surfing - are common. They were part of this concert, but there was an organized quality to the anarchy.

The mosh pit area in front of the stage was established during the warm-up act. In the midst of the moshing there was more human contact during one song than an average person will experience in a lifetime, but just a few feet to the right was an oasis of calm conduct and personal space.

The crowd surfing began when the headliners stepped on stage. As people arrived at the stage after a journey during which they had to trust that complete strangers would keep them afloat eight feet above the floor, the burly strongmen of the security staff grabbed each one, pulled them over the fence and sent them on their way.

(The friend accompanying me had a few frightening passed-around-the-crowd experiences in her concert-going days, but there were no helpful security men waiting to pull her out of harm's way. Instead she recalls being dumped unceremoniously in the midst of the people and clawing her way to the surface.)

The bouncers were a comfort in other ways. In either an act of great benevolence or pure pragmatism, between acts they passed out cups of water to the crowd, none of whom were about to lose their spots to stave off a little thing like dehydration.

Crowd comfort also was addressed by the band itself. At one point in the concert, the lead singer grabbed a powerful water gun and sent a stream of water out over the crowd in front where the most enthusiastic, animated and overheated fans tended to be.

It was a theatrical move that provided a moment of audience/rock star interaction, but it was probably also recommended by consultants and discussed in a committee meeting as a prudent measure proven to lower the incidence of heat exhaustion.

And in a genius combination of safety, technology and capitalism, cell phones outnumbered lighters as the implement of choice during the traditional call for the encore.

If the light from a cell phone display doesn't have the romantic appeal of a flame, it is certainly an advancement in fire safety. Hundreds of lighters in a confined space filled with people of varying heights are bound to lead to a few hair-burning incidents.

The voice of concert safety can even be found on the Internet. On Answers.com I found the "Rules of Moshing," which includes such reminders as "If someone falls over, stop moshing and immediately help the person get up." And "Kicking and punching is generally regarded to be a breach of pit etiquette…"

And the final rule for concert safety (I swear this is not my addition) was: "Make sure your mom stays out of the pit."

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com