NO DANCING

by RICHMOND RIVER RAT

EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece has nothing to do with anybody at WORLD TOILET’s views on mosh culture but the Rat, so take it up with him in the comments. It also has nothing to do with Elvis Costello. — MD

The last song I earnestly cried to was “No Dancing” by Knuckle Deep. This forlorn anthem begins with a riff that always gets me moving even before Bridget Filiatrault comes in screaming:

You fucking dragged me here / I came for all the shitty beer / I wish that bands sounded like rock and roll again

And all I need / is an elbow through my teeth to make me smile / There’s something wrong with this crowd / It’s missing something

Then it comes. A chorus of voices and strings in three distinct punches: NO. DANCE. ING.

And they’re right. People aren’t dancing like they used to. Shows these days are attended by crowds of stone-faced spectators with their feet planted and their arms crossed. Sometimes even moving your head feels like a deviation. Regardless of scene or genre, bands are urging the audience to get closer to the stage, to close the gap. It’ll work for a song or two, maybe even a whole set. But always without fail as one band breaks down and the next sets up that gap reforms - often with even more reluctance to close it than before.

But why? It’s human nature to move and groove and goddamn does it feel good. The first time I found myself in a shoulder-to-shoulder, gut-to-gut push pit I started laughing uncontrollably. I still grin like a madman when I encounter a rare crowd of real dancing. Letting the music take over your mind and allowing your body to fully respond to its natural urges of movement is the ultimate catharsis. Once you’ve felt it, it becomes that much harder to wrap your head around dead crowds. What could be more powerful than the human desire to move?

The answer, I believe, is judgement, or more aptly the fear of it. When I make the mistake of opening Instagram and then the further mistake of watching a reel and letting ten, twenty, thirty minutes of my life slip away, I see it everywhere. About everything. My feed is littered with videos of people demonstrating “proper mosh techniques” or making fun of someone elses. It’s hard to say who’s posing more, the people moshing for a video or those shaming them. But neither feels genuine.

I don’t even interact with them, just by liking hardcore-adjacent content will they appear. The Algorithm knows that hate drives engagement. It doesn’t even matter from which direction. I’m opening Instagram now, sacrificing my current mental tranquility to prove my point. Ten videos in and I’m watching people in a basement throw a traffic cone at eachother to a delicious breakdown. The top comment is, “I wish there was real moshing at these shows.” Brother, what the fuck are you talking about?

Seems these days that everybody has their own immutable idea of what real moshing is supposed to be. There are, of course, enduring dances like the two-step that started as a trend somewhere before spreading from scene to scene. Yet, I have a hard time believing that our foremoshers who developed these various styles were particularly worried about form, I really think they just wanted to move. To mosh as an imitation of those who came before you, because it is what you are supposed to do, is antithetical to its original purpose.

It’s a new phenomenon that anything we say or do may be recorded and shared with hundreds or even hundreds of thousands of strangers from around the world. And therefore a new psychological exercise to have to wonder, about everything we do in public, what unseen spectators may think of us. It is horrifically easy to absorb the unfiltered opinions of people we will never meet and have our views shaped by them. Instead of celebrating the luxury of getting to experience snippets of scenes from around the world and be connected to kindred spirits through music, we’re using this as another avenue for separating so-called right and wrong.

Great work, guys, we’ve found another way to divide ourselves. Great work: we’ve found a way to police dancing.

But it is exactly this trend of judgement, of trying to separate the real moshing from the fake that should keep us moving as authentically as possible. I’ll come clean and admit I’m typically reluctant to risk a bruised rib or a bootprint to the face at a show. And I’m especially not interested in getting my nose broken by a trend hardcore bro spin-kicking because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to do. But on the other hand, if the music is moving you to swing, jump, kick, dive, I want you to do it, regardless of the effect it may have on my face. Maybe it seems pointless to critique intent when the end result is the same but I swear you can feel it. A crowd that is pretending to dance because they are trying to something bygone simply does not have the energy of people who are dancing because they must.

So, please, move freely. Move genuinely. Go to shows and feel the sounds as fully as you are able and do not fret about what anyone may say or think about it. Close the gap between yourself and the stage in every walk of your life. Seek not to weed out and hate on posers but instead seek out those who are authentic and cultivate your own trueness to yourself. Above all keep dancing.