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What a Mosh Pit Taught Me About Growing Older
My son dragged me into the crowd. A stranger helped me back out
7-minute read
The key to surviving a mosh pit in your 50s is finding someone else who looks like they’re on a first-name basis with their pharmacist.
Zohar Lazar
I’m standing at the edge of a mosh pit, watching bodies swirl past like a maelstrom, trying to decide if now is a good time to mention my sciatica.
It’s mid-September, and I’ve brought my 15-year-old son, Charlie, to Riot Fest, a Chicago music festival that features bands that have been around since the 1970s and bands whose members look like they still need a ride home.
We’d each picked groups the other needed to see so we could take turns being insufferable about our taste in music. I opted for Elvis Costello and Patti Smith, and his wish list included Foxy Shazam, Mom Jeans and other bands with names that sounded like they’d been created with Mad Libs.
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“We’re gonna do the mosh pit, right?” Charlie asked, his eyes aglow.
“Sure, sure,” I said, hoping that by “do the mosh pit” he meant “stand near it and find a nice pole to lean against.”
I’d said yes back at home, where nobody was launching their entire body at me and expecting me to enjoy it. And I’d hoped he had forgotten my promise, especially once he saw the mud. It had rained all weekend, and by Sunday the ground at Riot Fest’s outdoor venue was essentially quicksand. Anyone who tried to move through too quickly didn’t get far, which I found reassuring. Mud is the great age equalizer. You could have the knees of a 19-year-old and still need a middle-aged stranger to pull you loose.
We’d caught several sets, but Charlie had been waiting for Mom Jeans, an emo act that makes heartbreak sound like you’d better stretch first. Now he was waving me toward their mosh pit. I wanted to explain that I could do just as much damage at home trying to fold a fitted sheet, but Charlie seemed determined that we make a day of it.
I took a tentative step toward my son. If this went badly, I hoped he’d tell the paramedics I used to be cool.
The author and his son, Charlie, at Chicago’s Riot Fest, September 2026. Their shared love of music met their differing levels of concern about Dad’s back.
A brief history of moshing
Moshing got its start at punk and hardcore shows in the late 1970s and early ’80s, when audiences decided that the best way to express how much they loved the music was by throwing their bodies at each other. It soon spread in the ’90s, along with metal and grunge, finding bigger crowds and more mainstream acceptance.
During my teens and 20s, I went to a lot of punk rock shows around Chicago, in bowling-alley theaters and basements, wherever somebody could plug in an amplifier and fit a crowd. I always got swept up in the frenzied dancing. At a Descendents show in the mid-1990s, I spent more time airborne than on solid ground.
That was what I loved about these crowds: There was an understanding beneath the chaos. You could collide with somebody like a human bumper car and still make sure they were OK.
We weren’t a group inclined to discuss our feelings, particularly with guys we’d just met in a basement. But you could hand these people your body, which was much more personal than telling them you’d had a difficult week. They were allowed to knock you around, and you trusted that they’d notice when you needed a hand getting back on your feet.
Moshing never sent me to the hospital, though I did leave some shows with open wounds. I heard music I loved and came away with something to show for it. Now, many years later, Charlie was asking me to trust a crowd again.
Please return Dad in his original condition
For an actual medical opinion, I turned to Joseph Tennyson, an EMS physician and professor of emergency medicine at UMass Chan Medical School. He and two colleagues studied mosh pit injuries at eight concerts and documented how often attendees needed to go to the hospital as a result. The average age of those seeking medical care in his study was 20. I’m in my 50s, old enough to be their dad, which is usually a reason to offer somebody a ride home, not follow them into a mosh pit.
Tennyson offered sage advice: “First of all, joining a mosh pit at 56 with your teenage son is a credible demonstration of punk rock commitment. Wanting to leave with all your original parts is good judgment.”
Injuries to the head accounted for 64 percent of the injuries recorded in his study. You could be 60 with a bad back or 20 and in perfect shape, but an incoming boot isn’t going to ask.
That doesn’t mean the risks are identical at every age. But Tennyson says deciding whether to take part requires more than just checking your birth date. It helps to think about how you’d fare if somebody knocked you down, since that’s a reasonable possibility in a mosh pit.
Tennyson strongly suggests that anyone taking blood thinners check with their doctor before entering a pit. If you take a hit to the head, get medical attention right away, even if you feel fine.
He also recommends staying hydrated and wearing shoes with good traction. Skip the booze and anything else that slows your reactions or throws off your balance. The crowd will give you enough trouble staying upright.
Stick close to the edge, plan an exit strategy, and decide in advance what you’re comfortable doing before the crowd starts making the decisions for you. The middle of a mosh pit “isn’t the best place to reconsider your risk tolerance,” Tennyson says.
So much for staying on the edge
My plan was to hang back and give Charlie a thumbs-up if he checked on me. Instead, he worked his way deeper into the pit and looked back to see why I wasn’t following.
I sighed and made my way into the throng of bodies. Cornell researchers have studied both the chaotic movement of a regular mosh pit and the more orderly rotation of what is called a circle pit. Fortunately, we were all heading in the same direction in a circle.
I got behind Charlie and put my hands on his shoulders, hoping all those years of telling him to watch where he was going might finally benefit me personally.
Tennyson had told me, “Pay attention to the movement of the crowd, not just the stage. Keep your knees slightly bent and maintain a stable stance. If the crowd becomes too dense or aggressive, leave early. Don’t wait until you’re already having trouble staying upright. And again, avoid crowd-surfing.”
The problem was I couldn’t tell you what anybody beyond Charlie was doing. I gripped his shoulders and stared at the back of his head. Then he disappeared farther into the pit, and I was left to supervise my own survival. I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“You OK, old man?”
I turned, ready to sneer at some young punk. Instead, there was another middle-aged guy, balding, with his remaining white hair pulled back into a ponytail. He looked like he had a good 10 years on me, and he was wearing the biggest grin I’d seen all afternoon. I was still on my feet, grinning back at him like a big, dumb, middle-aged Cheshire cat.
He was wearing a Sleater-Kinney tour shirt, and I was wearing a Wilco shirt. This is how older guys at rock shows ID each other.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “Just trying not to die.”
“That sounds like every day for me,” he said, laughing.
“What the hell are we doing in here?” I shouted, laughing too.
“Hey, we all have to go sometime. I’d rather do it here than in a hospital bed.”
Then somebody pushed hard against me, and my new friend caught me before I fell. I’d forgotten what it felt like to have somebody I’d just met reach for me before I hit the ground.
“I’ve got you, brother,” he said. “Just hang on.”
I made it out of the crowd, covered in mud but still on my feet. Nothing was broken, although I couldn’t take all the credit for that. Ponytail Guy had done more for my balance than any of the exercises I keep meaning to do.
Everyone our age needs a Ponytail Guy
The next morning, I was so achy I could barely move. In my 20s, I’d come home from shows bleeding and still go out the next night. This time, nothing was broken, but I had to think carefully about how I was going to get off the couch that afternoon.
Would I do it again? Probably not. “Leave while it’s still fun,” Tennyson had advised me. That seems like useful advice well beyond mosh pits.
But I keep thinking about Ponytail Guy, who’d noticed me struggling and decided we were going to get through this together.
Neither of us looked remotely indestructible. We looked like two guys who knew exactly which pharmacies stayed open late. I never thought to ask him his name.
If I see him again, I’ll introduce myself as the Wilco guy he’d saved from face-plating in mud. I think he’d remember. We’ve both reached an age when someone saving you a trip to urgent care feels like a real gesture of affection.
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