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Tales From The Pit: Mutiny of the Vans Sneakers

Band Photo: Mutiny Within

We've been talking to bands and fans everywhere to get their favorite mosh pit stories. This week AJ Jacobs of Mutiny Within tells a story that many of us can relate to, either because it happened to you or because you remember it happening to someone at a show.

"I was about 15 years old, went to see Children Of Bodom live, my favorite band at the time. So I was crowd surfing, screaming along with the lyrics, etc. Then I got into the pit, and oh man, I got my ass kicked. Not just that, but my sneaker came loose and I lost it. I had those big VANS sneakers, so it's no wonder it fell off.

"Anyway, so I only have 1 sneaker on at this point and I'm getting pushed further and further back in the venue. Then I saw an object getting thrown all the way to the ceiling several times. And of course, it was my shoe, people were just throwing it around.

"By the end of the show, I made it up to the barricade. When the last song ended and people started clearing out, I saw a bunch of random sneakers near the security guard. I said "Give me a left shoe!", so they did. It wasn't mine, but I wore it for the next week until I bought some new shoes. Needless to say, I steered away from VANS ever since."

Mutiny Within is currently touring North America with Sonata Arctica in support of their self-titled debut album, which was released on February 23rd. The band also had a track featured on the brand new "God of War III" EP. Finally, the band is only a few episodes into a 12-part documentary that can be seen at mutinywithin.com. New webisodes in the series are posted every Wednesday.

Check back every Tuesday for more tales from the mosh pit.

A self-described "metal geek," Doug Gibson has been listening to heavy metal for more than twenty years and designed and coded Metal Underground.com from scratch nearly ten years ago.