The grinder

Clawfinger is a band that writes songs with much more concern about how they will sound on-stage than in the studio.

If a concert can attract big enough a crowd, it will naturally structurate itself according to a radial pattern. The centre of it is right in front of the stage and usually called the "mosh pit". The random Joe thrown in there would feel like a black guy in a skinhead tea party. Everyone is grabbing everyone, pushing, bouncing, hitting with arms and legs. The crowd is quivering with life, people are constantly thrown around. One crowd member can travel very quickly through the core as he gets molested by the rest. It's a very cathartic experience.

Paul and I left Pedro and Aino at the outskirt of the core and dived straight into the chaos. It is much less dangerous and much more fun than it looks from outside. One particularly refreshing sight:

If someone is hit so hard that he trips and fall, everyone around him that saw it will instantly create a perimetre around him and one of them would jump to help him up.
Even better: If you go there and look like you lost something on the floor, someone around you will notice it, call the attention of the others around you, create a perimetre, everyone with a light will start searching the floor for you... Whether you lost something or not.

But it's still a violent place. I was in a real frenzy in the middle of that mess. At one point, the band asked that the crowd be split in two, with a 5m large trench in the middle, going from the middle of the stage to the outer crowd. He counted to 3 and, at the same time, both half of the crowd started rushing to one another. The song started as the two bodies of people smashed into each other. We're talking of thousands of people right now. I was on the front line and was lifted clear from the ground by the impact.

I had a cracked rib from a fight club two weeks before. It was almost healed when the concert started. After the concert, it hurted worse than ever.

I'm pretty sure that the band could have asked both half of the crowd to run to each other headlong. Resulting probably in several head trauma.

There are few things more stupid than a crowd.

After the concert was over, I was all alone. I had split with the others. I called Paul's cellphone and got Pedro. We met at the beer station. Aino was there too, Paul was lost.

The next concert was going to be boring, but the one after was one that I didn't want to miss. A great German band called "Guano Apes" that every polish people to whom I mentioned they were from Germany was quick to remind me that the lead singer had Croatian origins... We decided to wait the boring band out with a beer. Paul was likely to look for us there anyway, though I was more suspecting that he was busy looking for cute girls to harrass.

While we were in the beer-queue, Aino went to the toilets. She came back limping. She had tripped on a pothole and probably sprained an ankle. I was still sober enough to arrange something.

Medical duty

I left Pedro at the beer station in case Paul would show up, telling him to keep an eye on the phone. Then I lifted her on my shoulders and we headed to the first aid booth.

They didn't let me stay with her. They were too crowded. She didn't have a cellphone so I left her mine, after giving a strict meeting point to Pedro. He was there (efficient people turn me on!), and we went back to the beer station to drink some more and in case Paul would show up. The boring concert was still on, no big deal. I was sorry for Aino though. She got herself way too drunk.

She called a bit before the Guano Apes concert, Paul was still lost. We met her, she had a thick bandaid around the ankle, and was completely sobered up. They hadn't given her clutches so she was heavily limping. I put her on my shoulders again to go to the concert ground. Guano Apes had arrived on stage.

I'm no musical critic, but I must say I found their performance bleak. Around me, everyone else was frantic though. I did a quick dive in the mosh pit but I was worrying a bit for Aino. Pedro sticked around too so it was the 3 of us. Aino did her best not to burden us too much, we danced, singed along on the songs we knew, made out in an extatic threesome, my hippies friends would probably say that we exchanged a lot of energy.

That's when the storm broke out.