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Pit Stories: A Lesson In Mosh Pit Styles

We've been talking to bands and fans everywhere to get their favorite mosh pit stories. This week Ben Falgoust of Goatwhore discusses small bars and "The Four Corners of the Apocalypse." (That is not a Goatwhore song title.):

Here's a transcription of that video segment:

Ben Falgoust: “We’ve had some pretty rowdy pits, you know. A recent one, we played Wisconsin and it got pretty rowdy. It wasn’t crazy…well, the pit was sort of crazy. But the people at the front seemed even more crazy and they were just throwing alcohol all night. Basically, the whole stage, it’s the stage and then monitors, it was just liquor all on it. Beer, drinks, everything. Even to, we have points where we played this place that’s up near Albany, New York, a place called Popeye’s Pub. It’s a small little place. It’s the smallest place you can imagine seeing a band. This place is small. But the show was fun. Actually, the stage was bigger than the floor space the people were on. And the back wall of that was about to give way into this yard. So at any given moment these people could have been shoved if the whole back wall fell out. But in this little tight area, it just broke out on the floor and it was so crazy cause the area was so fucking small and these people were like…It was like all the sudden you step two feet, and turned around, and someone was plowing into you. It was almost like you didn’t have time to maneuver what you wanted to do on the floor. So that was great too. And sometimes when we get a really good rowdy crowd, we do this called the Four Corners of the Apocalypse. They have this big thing called the Wall of Death where two lines come and they clash. We took it a step further and made it the four corners of the room, and everybody goes toward the center and just…it’s chaos.

Buick: I bet that makes a great noise.

Ben: Yeah, bones cracking and things like that. It’s always pretty exciting. Um, let’s see. Anything else fairly exciting? Every show is a different experience, you know? So after this I’ll think of something. I’ll say, “Oh, damn! That situation was fucking crazy.” Yeah, there’s a lot of different ones, man. We’ve played from big places to small places, but I really like the aggression of the small places because you’re locked into so much area. So when it breaks out, there’s nowhere to really go. It’s like you’re trapped, so everybody in that area is sucked into it and has to partake in it unless they just leave the room because the area is so small. But then again the big places, if the whole place is ready to roll and do something crazy and you can ignite them to go off, that’s pretty fucking intense as well. Like an entire floor.

Don't miss the show report from Goatwhore's return to New Orleans.

Check back every Tuesday for more pit stories.

Emily is an avid supporter of the New Orleans scene, often filming shows and conducting interviews with local bands to help promote their music. She also runs her own site dedicated to the New Orleans scene, Crescent City Chaos.