Honor in the Pit: Dillinger Escape Plan at Baltimore Soundstage
This article was original published in 2014 by What Weekly, a now-defunct Baltimore magazine.
“Just keep your elbows up and you’ll be OK.”
That was the advice my friend Josh gave me before Summer Slaughter last year, a hardcore metal show headlined by The Dillinger Escape Plan and my first of its kind. The way he and his friend Eric had been hyping up the mosh pits, I spent serious time debating whether to wear a mouth guard, shin guards, and a jock strap. I chose none and came out with a sprained wrist.
So why am I on my way to see Dillinger again?
That’s all I could think on the car ride to the Baltimore Soundstage last Saturday. And not only that, but why had I roped along my friend John, who had never been to a show like this? Whatever the reason, it was too late to turn back now.
On the way there, we stop at 7-11 to grab Red Bulls, a crucial ingredient for the prospective mosher. Just before we arrive at the Soundstage, we chug our drinks in a ritual we call “riding the Bull,” and head inside.
We’re early, giving us a chance to scope out the crowd, another vital step. We identify a few people as “potential problems” and a few we plan on dragging into the pit ourselves, including a guy in a classy silver sport jacket, a guy wearing neon yellow socks and a light-up Transformers shirt, and Super Mario himself.
As the show starts, a Norwegian band called Shining takes the stage. Led by Jørgen Munkeby, Shining is a fascinating outfit that has Munkeby switching between vocals, guitar, and a tenor sax with ease and style. He would throw his sax back and high into the air, barreling out complicated, intense riffs like dipping George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” in hellfire.
Torstein Lofthus, the drummer, had his moment as well, pounding out an incredible extended solo to start a song before Munkeby joined in with another fiery sax section to crowd fanfare.
The soundcheck crew prepared for the next band with a lengthy and grating test before launching into a mediocre song of their own, inspiring us to poke our earplugs farther into our heads. After they began playing a second song, however, we realized that that were actually Retox, the next band.
“We are an opening act,” lead singer Gabe Serbian finally said, brushing aside his fauxhawk. “I hope you like us. If you do, good. If you don’t, even better.”
He mentions that the Soundstage management instructed him to inform us that we should save our ticket stubs to come back the next night to see the lead singer of Creed perform. He can’t get through the message without laughing.
“Dude, I love Scott Staph,” a cry comes from the audience.
With that, Retox’s final song begins. Halfway through, Serbian hops down from the stage and leaves.
Trash Talk is the next band to take the stage, led by Lee Spielman, a man who looks like he was born in mosh pit, his face looking swollen in few places and his long hair dripping sweat down his back, and who proved to be one of the most charismatic performers of the night.
“Hold on, Baltimore. There’s no barrier to this f***ing stage so I need every motherf***er diving head first off this stage,” he commanded, and the audience was more than happy to oblige. “Somebody kicked me in the f***ing jaw,” he said ecstatically by the song’s end.
The light nodding and the occasional sole mosher eager for the show to start that characterised previous acts turned into a riot under Spielman’s direction. The stage became the new frontier for most of the audience as stage dives started happening every few seconds to mixed results, but one especially ambitious soul actually climbed a dangling stagelight and hung from the rafters, eliciting huge cheers from the crowd. Not even security seemed keen to stop him.
Spielman’s next orders were “crowd around me, crowd around me” as he hopped down into the audience. “You with your f***ing arms folded,” he yelled, singling out a person in the back, “get up here! You’re no better than any of us!"
Inches from his face, I have no idea what to expect. Then the order comes. “All right, when this next song starts, I want you all to circle pit." I look to spot John’s face in the crowd. We exchange unprepared looks. Spielman screams, the wardrums start, and the crowd ignites, rushing in a mad circle around him. People shove off each other, grab bystanders from the fringes and drag them in, and try to hop over the cord to Spielman’s mic.
I watch a guy fall and rush over to help him up, but the crowd has already lifted him to his feet before I even get halfway there. I think back to when I fell in the pit at Summer Slaughter and sprained my wrist. Before it even registered to me that I had fallen, there were three hands extended in my direction to help me up. “There’s honor in the pit,” Josh had told me, and he was right.
The Soundstage isn’t a large venue, but for a show like this, it’s miles long, an observation not lost on Spielman, back on the stage, as the song dies down and he notices a large contingent of the crowd hanging back. He splits the room in half, ordering every mosher in the front to attack the back at the start of the next song.
All of us winded from the circle pit, my group steps to the side to observe. We see true, distinct fear take hold of the back half of the room, and Eric points out an older gentleman who simply throws his hands up, accepting of his fate. The song starts and at first, there’s no movement from either side, then suddenly, the entire front half charges at the back, fists flowing wildly into the air, screaming, jumping, gnashing. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
Josh spots a guy who looks like he’s about to be trampled and rushes into the battlefield to help him. Eric follows in support, but John and I hang back.
We’re all exhausted as Trash Talk leaves the stage, but we know that it’s only going to get crazier once Dillinger takes the stage. Sure enough, as the clock counts down and the lights dim, a palpable tension descends over the room and a real anxiety starts to build up in our guts. We look around the crowd, their faces darkening and fists clenching. If these people were willing to hang from rafters and go to war for Trash Talk, what would they do for Dillinger?
The screens onstage begin displaying hypnotizing messages and the image of a woman in a trance. The crowd begins to rush forward. Long, ominous bass booms ripple through the room, vibrating through our chests and ribs, timed with blinding light flashes. A few moments later, the band files on stage and launches into their first song, “Prancer.” Greg Puciato, the lead singer who looks like a hulking version of Macklemore, grabs the mic, kneels on the edge of the stage and grabs a fan by the shirt, pulling him close and screaming into his face as loud as he can.
From all over, whenever Puciato comes close, hands reach out to grab him, trying to pull him into the crowd like the river Styx. People push and shove and punch to get closer to him, or just for the sake of it.
Behind me, a mosh pit breaks out, but right now, I’m so close to the stage that I want no part of it. Occasionally I get flashes of my group swirling around me, pushed by the mob. There’s a moment where I watch one of them on my left get shoved backward and disappear into the tumultuous, angry sea, and I don’t see him again until the end of the song when suddenly he’s on my right.
“You want to go up?” Josh asks me, gesturing to the crowdsurfers. I’m not sure, honestly. I’ve watched it go particularly poorly for a few unfortunate folks. But I’m not here to sit on the sidelines, so I give him the go-ahead. He and Eric each grab a leg and thrust me up on top of a crowd who shoves me forward onto the stage. I land roughly on my left elbow, which starts bleeding, and stand up, looking out. In the moment, I headbang a bit, glance to Puciato, his thick neck red as he screams wildly a few feet from me, then I leap off back into the crowd. Hands reach up both to support me and protect their owners. It feels like I’m floating miles above the crowd. After what must have in actuality been five seconds but felt like five minutes, I’m set gently back on my feet next to John, who nods in approval but cannot be convinced to do the same.
I can’t blame him. Last year, I wouldn’t have done it either, even after the inspiring display of watching a man in a wheelchair get carried up almost to the stage, wheels and all, grabbing Puciato’s outstretched hand before security denied him the stage floor.
Security at the Baltimore Soundstage is thankfully much more permissive. During the band’s encore, they sit in chairs onstage and play the same manic rhythm juxtaposed with a decidedly more relaxed posture, before Puciato grabs his chair and throws it into the pit, a dangerous and irresponsible move but incredible nonetheless.
I run to the bathroom to palm water into my mouth from the sink like a man in the desert finding an oasis, and return feeling rejuvenated, rushing past tired faces to slam myself into the crowd, finding my place at the front again. A fan jumps onstage during a cover of Aphex Twin's "Come To Daddy" and Puciato hands him the microphone. Not missing a beat, the fan perfectly emulates Puciato's style and screams "come to daddy" over and over to the crowd before jumping back in.
Guitarist Ben Weinman stands on a speaker inches in front of us, looking down upon us like we are his subjects, then treats us as such, stepping forward onto, not into, the crowd. His left foot lands on my shoulder and I grab it to support him as he plays from above, standing tall. Eventually we push him back onto the stage and he lands smoothly, seamlessly returning to his place by Puciato’s side.
The final song begins and true chaos finally breaks out. It starts with a fan rushing the stage to grab the setlist, met by a sly grin from Weinman, appreciating the fan’s tenacity. Soon, another fan climbs up, trying to grab water, paper, a drumstick, anything. More join him, each of them grabbing for a piece like Prometheus trying to steal fire from the gods. Eventually there are more people on the stage than not. I join them.
All vestiges of society disappear around us as the elevated mosh takes over. The band members take it in stride, hopping onto their amps to keep performing over the sea of zealots below. They ram and elbow each other, clawing at the band. The ones closest to the edge look like Persians about to be pushed off a cliff by King Leonidas and his Spartans.
I consider jumping off, one final crowd surf into the night, but there simply aren’t enough people below anymore to support it. I am surrounded by faces desperate for Puciato’s blessing. He is their savior, their own personal Jesus Christ. I am not at a concert. I am at church.