True story: I recently witnessed Worcester’s own Bovachevo live. They tore, playing a mathy hard rock that reminded me a lot of Drive Like Jehu. They raked, plain and simple.
I was pretty into the show, except for one simple problem.
The dripping, idiotic, testosterone-laden specimens who insisted on ruining my show experience by slamming into me, knocking me over, and generally disrupting the experience.
This all ties in to the recent crackdown on slam dancing in Boston.
The general sentiment I get from most people about this is akin to a student body responding to a high school principal’s unpopular decision. This isn’t banning the twist or the hustle; its a pragmatic decision. It’s getting rid of a practice that ultimately has nothing of interest to offer besides potential lawsuits.
Ok, so I’ll admit: the older I’ve gotten, the more idiotic the entire act of slam dancing seems.
I’ve been to too many shows over the years where I am forced to spend the entire experience on guard, waiting for an errant elbow to knock into my head. It’s not just that taking a haymaker to the back of the skull is an unpleasant experience; it’s that the people who participate in this behavior are being disingenuous in doing so.
It ruins the experience, and makes otherwise intelligent heavy music easy to see as bafoonish and idiotic.
We all go to shows to experience the music, am I wrong in that presumption? We go to see a live band that will bring it, for the sake of experience. We pay money to see genuine acts of musical heroism.
It’s rather difficult to reach said experiences when you’re thrashing around like a seizure victim, when your only focus is to knock everything around you the fuck down. When violence is your only focus, you’re not enjoying the music; you’re just a thug.
And you’re ruining the experence for basically everyone but yourself: women and men who are smaller than you, and anyone smarter than you.
There, I said it.
