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Pit Stories: Hardcore Dancers Battle Metal Band Carnivora

There's a million tales from the metal mosh pit, and we're going to find them all! Each Tuesday we check in with metal musicians from across the globe to get their most memorable Pit Story.

Today guitarist Cody Michaud from Massachusetts outfit Carnivora shares this tale of hardcore dancers who just don't like to be touched:

The first story that comes to mind when I think of crazy shit going down at a show happened about 4 years back in Manchester, NH. It was at a place called Rocko’s, which was a notorious venue for hardcore / post-hardcore / breakdown-core / running-in-place-core / etc. at the time. My band was booked to play on this particular night, and seeing as it was one of our first shows we didn’t mind playing a hardcore bill as the lone metal band. The young, stubborn metal enthusiasts that we were didn’t comprehend the concept ninja dancing and two stepping in the pit. We were dead set on starting circle pits.

For those of you who have experienced modern hardcore dancers, you’ll know that they typically prefer to avoid all physical contact with each other. The technique, as I understand it, is to spin-kick and windmill-punch in a way that freaks out everybody nearby, then get pissed when anybody touches you. I don’t know, man. Anyway… we played our set to a room of uninterested hardcore fans. I can’t really blame them, we were asking for it. A bit after we played, one of these kids finally had enough of our ball-busting when he got bumped into by our bassist, Cam.

The dude immediately turned around and hit Cam in the face. At this point, things quickly escalated into a fight with every hardcore kid in the room against my band and crew. I like to imagine it looked like one of those cartoon brawls with the cloud of dust and limbs flying in every direction. Our merch guy broke up the mess before it got worse and we decided to pack up and leave. At the time, our intention was to be “defenders of the faith” by repping metal moshing practices. Like I said, we were young and aggressive metal kids. We didn’t know any better.

You can find more info on the band and upcoming live shows by heading over to the Carnivora Facebook profile here. Be sure to also let us know your favorite mosh pit story about hardcore dancing below!