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Pit Stories: Don't Judge A Book By The Cover

Our quest never ends to find the best mosh pit stories from ever corner of metaldom, from the most brutal wall of death to the most insane stage antics and everything in between.

This week Subversion vocalist Jay Shields shares the following tale warning metal fans not to judge a book by its cover (and not to be an ass to the performing bands):

I was playing an underground all-dayer in my old band Hollow Immunity, and this really drunk guy in the crowd was heckling all the bands. He didn't look like he was even into metal, just some local piss head who'd wondered in off the street.

As the day progressed, the venue filled up and by the time we took to the stage there were quite a few people in the pit area and Mr. Pisshead was right there with them. By now he was pretty steamed and giving out random abuse to those around him.

When we kicked into our first track the crowd went pretty crazy in the pit… into which he got sucked. Soon enough he was on his arse and looking very dazed and confused. I thought “here we go, he'll disappear now and give everyone a break,” but actually he looked like he was enjoying himself. He stayed in the pit for the rest of the set and even came up to us afterwards to say how much he enjoyed the show.

Turns out he didn't look metal, Adidas trackies and all, but he was a Polish metal head and really dug what we were doing. Goes to show, you should never judge a book by its cover, even if he needed a bit of an attitude adjustment.

What's the most outlandish heckling you've ever seen from someone in the audience? Share your story below!

Subverion's upcoming new album "Animi" is due out March 3rd via Rogue Records America, and you can also see a lyric video for the track "Imperfect" here: