The Mosh

In which I stray from my usual themes of sister loss and mother care into the realm of aging and role reversal

My daughter, who is 15, loves the nu-metal band System of a Down.  She started liking them when she was six and her older brother listened to them.  I liked them too, to everyone’s surprise.  The band broke up, sad to say, so when my daughter found out they were getting back together to do a one-time tour, she had to get tickets.  She’d need a ride to the Shoreline Ampitheatre, so she asked if I wanted to go with her.  We thought some of her other friends would get tickets, but that didn’t happen, so when the day came, off we went, the teenager and her mom to a heavy metal concert on a Sunday night in Mountain View. 

It was a beautiful spring evening.  We got there early and set up our blanket in a choice spot on the grassy hill while other people arrived with their blankets and their blunts, and set up around us.  Watching the droves pour into the amphitheatre, I realized I was quite possibly the oldest person attending the concert, with only a handful of others anywhere near my age category.  I knew I was an anomaly in that setting, but I don’t think I have yet adjusted to how differently younger people see me than I see myself.  I’m still strong and full of aliveness, I still feel young.  I don’t get it that they don’t think I am. 

I’d been warned that everyone would stand up and move forward when the band started to play.  That turned out to be less than full disclosure of what I was in for, but at this point, it was a chill scene.  Except for when the 20-something girl in front of us passed out and collapsed, with her eyes open.  My daughter thought she was dead.  I’ve seen a few dead people so I knew she wasn’t, but it was a little freaky for a moment. 

My daughter ran into some friends when the opening band started playing, and let me know that I didn’t need to be right next to them.  I understood; I complied.  It seemed ok at the time.  Then System came on stage, and the crowd jammed up even more, and it was getting dark, and I realized it could be harder for us to find each other afterwards than I had thought, even with texting.   I started moving as best I could through the crowd in the direction she had gone, and suddenly found myself sucked into the mosh. 

Well, not actually into the mosh.  I was at the edge of the mosh and couldn’t get away, so I kept getting slammed into as the wild bodies came flying off the spinning circle with centrifugal force.  I checked my cell phone and saw a message from my daughter:  “Where are you?”  As I was texting her back, she appeared in front of me with a worried expression on her face.  “Are you ok?”  She didn’t want me out of her sight.  A minute later, one of her friends came back from the mosh, limping. 

All night, kids that weren’t even my daughter’s friends kept asking if I was ok.  It took me the rest of the concert to grasp that to them I was a frail old lady who needed looking after.  I’d heard some bad stories of mosh injuries and even deaths from trampling, but I was more nervous than actually afraid.  I’d been doing Pilates for a few months so I felt strong and balanced and could push back – just like a kid. 

On the way home she told me that her friends had asked why I was there.  “She loves System of a Down,” she told them.  “Cool,” they said.  They must have thought I went along to make sure my daughter was safe, which would have been very un-cool.  Instead, I was the remarkable (or misguided) old woman who ventured into their world for a night, and needed their protection.  An unexpected ending, you might say.