SURRENDER

Do people still mosh?

I don’t mean the ironic elbow-waggle in a TikTok clip or the shuffle-in-place at a suburban ska revival. I mean the real thing. The body-trust of it. The joy. The sacrament. The kind of moshing that makes you believe…in rhythm, in strangers, in something loud enough to knock a thought clean out of your head.

In the late ’90s, I went alone to a Fishbone show at Ground Zero in Minneapolis. No one wanted to come with me, and I pretended that made me superior. It was a private kind of righteousness. I didn’t need anyone else to understand what I already knew: Fishbone was religion.

I’d been listening since the late ’80s, pulling cassette tapes from cracked plastic bins and letting them warp slightly in the back seat of my mom’s car. Their music didn’t sit still. It skated between ska, funk, punk, jazz, a kind of anarchic gospel. It felt like something breaking out of itself. So, when I saw they were playing a venue named Ground Zero…one of their earliest hits was literally called “Party at Ground Zero”…I took it as divine alignment.

I arrived early. I knew the layout: four small tables with chairs, tucked like relics at the back of the room. The rest? Moshing territory. No barricades. No security moat. Just space, sweat, and intent.

Outside, the line grew slowly. A kind of communion. We all knew what was coming. Across the street, a bus exhaled. Angelo Moore stepped off holding a plate of spaghetti like a sacrifice. He ate quickly, dropped the plate in a trash can, and belched toward the sky with an almost ceremonial satisfaction.

I was thrilled.

Inside, I claimed my seat like a pilgrim claiming a patch of sacred ground. The openers…Failure and Snot…lived up to their names. A slow punishment. But we endured. You can wait for the holy when you know it’s coming.

And then: Fishbone.

Angelo launched into the crowd with the first chord, carried forward by joy and forearms. The room exploded. I watched from the safety of my chair, smug. But the music didn’t stay put. It reached out, pulled at something in me. By the time they hit “Swim,” I realized I was standing. By the first chorus, I was at the edge of the pit. The song itself, a call to throw your body into the fray, felt like a dare.

I dared.

The first rule of moshing is to surrender. You don’t control the direction. You don’t steer. You yield to the current. You’re a branch in the river, a loose gear in someone else’s machine. And if you’re lucky, if the crowd is good, if the music is righteous, the machine holds.

It held.

I was shoved, spun, absorbed. A stranger’s shoulder hit my chest. My back met someone else’s palm. The floor never met me. That was the miracle. I kept moving, no idea where I was going. Just moving.

And then, somehow, I was pressed against the stage.

Fishbone was right there. Right there.

Angelo Moore crouched at the edge, feet planted like a sprinter, his body a fuse lit by the music. He leaned forward, bellowing into the mic. I could feel his voice before I heard it. The vibrations in my sternum. The warm wind of breath between verses. And then, it happened.

He looked down. He saw me.

There was no calculation in it. No performance. Just recognition. His eyes locked on mine like we’d met before, somewhere outside of time. And in the next breath, he reached down, grabbed my wrist, and pulled.

Suddenly, I was onstage.

For one glorious moment, I was part of the band.

Security had blocked others all night. But this was different. This was an invitation.

I danced like a man given five seconds to explain his life without words. I didn’t think. I didn’t breathe. I moved. Then I turned, ran, and jumped.

The crowd caught me.

All arms. All warmth. All forgiveness.

They passed me backward like a newborn. No mockery. No hesitation. Just the shared belief that this…this absurd, beautiful ritual…mattered.

I floated, limbs loose, carried by the roar.

And in that moment, I understood why people mosh. It’s not about aggression. Not really. It’s about proximity. Surrender. The thrum of your ribs matching someone else’s. The shared knowledge that yes, this song is too good to listen to sitting down.

Eventually, I found my way back to Earth. I reentered my body, my clothes damp, my heart louder. I didn’t go back to the seat. I didn’t need to. I’d been somewhere better.

I’m in my fifties now. I don’t mosh anymore.

These days, I stand at the back. I nurse a seltzer. I wear foam earplugs and leave before the encore to beat traffic. But I still go. I still listen. Because some part of me never left that moment…caught midair between the stage and the floor, between the shout and the catch.

That night taught me something I’ve never quite been able to say without sounding ridiculous: that sometimes, you throw yourself forward, not because you know you’ll be caught, but because you believe in the kind of people who show up to a Fishbone show. Because the music demands a response. Because the world…so often cruel, so often absurd…still makes room for a man with a plate of spaghetti to pull you onstage and say: Now. Dance.

Do people still mosh?

I hope so.