Last night I went to see old-school, 'crusty' politicopunks New Model Army at Cardiff University and I was the youngest person there, pretty much. Seeing as the band formed in 1980, that's not too much of a surprise. But what did surprise me was the participation of the heroically-grizzled audience.
New Model Army crowd build impressive human pyramids
Despite the distinct vintage of the fans, they danced with aplomb and delighted in building elaborate human pyramids with willowy women atop the piles. Buttressed and structurally-sound, these triple-height edifices were surely the work of engineering students of the 1980s. I doubt a media studies student of today would know how to do it.
I was accompanying my girlfriend who assured me that this kind of behaviour was all the rage in the alternative rock and goth scenes of the 1980s: all waved arms and pogo-ing. It made me realise that I'd not seen this kind of dancing for many years. Surely it can't have fallen out of use?
If i think back to watching footage from Reading or Glastonbury in the early 1990s, pogoing was the de facto way in which to dance to the rock and indie of the time. Up and down on the same spot, with a spot of well-done crowd surfing, even to the harder stuff. It wasn't until you got to the pretty extreme metal that people began beating the whatsit out of each other.
The circle pit, the slam dance and the wall of death were the preserve of punk and hardcore gigs, slowly working their way out of the NYC and DC dives.
By the time I was DJing at Cardiff Barfly's pop-punk shows in the early part of the last decade, though, dancing had changed. I hauled a 13 year old reprobate out of one crowd for wall-of-death-ing with feet first, into the face of a girl; and it wasn't uncommon for kids to go flying with bits of themselves bleeding or bruised, from a circle pit.
All very enjoyable I'm sure, but to me gig dancing should be aid the communal consumption of the music. It's not unusual these days to see what are essentially pop-rock bands full of radio-friendly hooks to ask the audience to get a circle pit going, or a wall of death. I'm sorry, but unless you've made the choice to see a hardcore band that you know advocates dancing like that, it shouldn't be foisted upon you.
The overly-macho, testosterone-fuelled, elbows-and-knees japery of punk (and god knows I've loved that on occasion) means a disconnection between the band and the majority of the audience. By creating a vacuum at the front, filled only with tousle-haired teens and the occasional fat old punk, the rest of the audience find themselves caring more for their own safety than what the band are playing. It can turn a good vibe sour.
I'd like to see a return to more old-fashioned ways of dancing to rock bands. It's possible to get close to the band and their music by having a good old pogo. If it worked for Nirvana it's good enough for anyone.
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