by Genevieve Lowles

I don’t remember the first time I waded into a mosh pit, but I don’t think it went very well.

I have vague memories of my first rock concert in 2004, tentatively throwing up the horns and jumping up and down. It was The Darkness’ UK tour, and my mum had dropped me off outside the venue while she went to the cinema next door to watch the second Bridget Jones film and wait to pick me up. Rock and roll.

Being in that kind of space didn’t feel very natural to me. Like most teenage girls, I would’ve been bobbing along to the music while utterly convinced that everyone around me was thinking about how awkward and out of place I looked.

I had yet to discover the thrill of moving your body wildly and hugely in a public space without giving a fuck.

Finding a sound that resonates

For many people, music makes up a core tenant of our existence. It creates a soundtrack for whatever we happen to be going through. It can reflect a certain mood, become an experience we’re taking time out to enjoy or be used as a tool to drown out the background noise.

I grew up listening to a lot of Bob Dylan, Kate Bush, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and like many young people I thought I’d discovered “good music.”

But the CDs I reached for again and again were also a coping mechanism against feelings I was struggling with; loneliness, rejection, fear, and disconnect (Led Zeppelin’s super horny lyrics went completely over my head, unfortunately).

Heavy metal snuck up on me.

Thanks to the unbridled enthusiasm of a good friend who had fallen head-first down the rabbit hole of metal sub-genres, I opened my eardrums to newer, heavier sounds.

My Spotify Discover Weekly became flooded with obscure Scandi death metal bands. I procured a suitably obscure, designated gig t-shirt. I bought a decent pair of ear protectors.

It was only when I started going to live shows that I understood the power of this kind of music.

“It just sounds like noise to me”

There’s a common misconception that heavy metal is fuelled by blind, ignorant aggression. Walls of sound with incomprehensible lyrics about betrayal, fury, and probably a Norse God doing something violent with a big sword.

I mean, it is absolutely is about those things, and I remember listening to certain tracks and feeling repelled by the heaviness of the sound. What are they singing about? Where’s the story here? This sounds so angry, it’s obviously not for me.

But track by track I found myself acclimatizing to the tone, and began finding messages of celebration, power, passion, and yes, often rage and despair.

By the time I had gone to a few gigs, I was head over heels in love.

Heading into unknown territory

Heavy metal gigs are a male-dominated space.

Please don’t misunderstand; they’re not a male-owned space, but they are majority male occupied.

I’m a feminist. I know in theory that I can occupy any public space I would like. And as an able-bodied, cis, white woman I also recognize that I’ve experienced far fewer barriers in taking up space than many.

But I’m also an individual with my own set of experiences, and have never been excellent at being somewhere that I thought wasn’t “meant” for me.

The dives and dungeons I began to frequent were full of people I was intimidated by; mostly men, dressed in the black-clad uniform of the metalhead. I don’t judge myself for thinking twice about how I might be perceived in those spaces.

Were they going to assume I was there as a passive companion to my male friend? Will I be objectified and dismissed as another female body? Will I need to name the second to last track on the band’s sophomore album to prove I deserved to be there? Will I get groped if I step into that crowd?

Some concerns were more valid than others, and looking back I was expecting the worst. My experience turned out to be quite the opposite.

Welcome home

The first time I truly felt that heady mix of blissful absence and absolute physical presence during a metal show, I was seeing Bury Tomorrow, a popular, UK-based metal-core band.

I barely knew more than a handful of songs from the (brilliant) support acts, but it didn’t matter. By the time the headliners took the stage in a stranglehold, I had fallen back into a frenzy of movement and sound.

My body was bruised, boiling hot and slick with the sweat of at least a hundred other men and women. I had surrendered to the overwhelming energy churning and roiling in the pit, and while I was being pulled and thrown in every direction, I was certainly not a passive participant.

I had never felt more liberated and at home in my life.

Head-banging my way to self-care

To my surprise and delight, I also found that metal gigs helped me to take care of my mental health.

I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to explore feelings of anger. When the band plays, I am given a platform for play-acting expressions of rage, passion, despair, and joy.  At times I’m just shoving and moshing for the fun of it, but there are very important moments when the music and movement help me to feel anger in a way that is real, but also safe.

I was a “good girl” growing up. If someone had hurt me or upset me, the pain went inward; it was obviously my fault. This music and these gigs were telling me it was OK to express those feelings, and I needn’t have to take myself too seriously to do so.

In fact, it felt suspiciously like self-care.

While I was screeching along to the breakdowns, headbanging like a champ, and barrelling round the circle pit, I was learning to very loudly exorcize my demons.

And screaming “I know that you will never learn! Fuck you for thinking I’ve been burned!” at the top of your lungs with five hundred other people turns out to be a real tonic for the soul.

Love for my fellow metalheads

I needn’t have worried about feeling unwelcome, nor as it turns out, being unsafe.

I had been worried about being harassed, sexualized or dismissed. But when the lights go down and the band roars into life, I become just another participating body.

In a mosh pit, there are unwritten laws that most metalheads adhere to: if someone falls, the pit turns inwards to yank them to their feet; you don’t punch; you don’t kick; and you (try) not to throw half-drunk pints of beer at each other. You look after each other – gender, in my experience, was irrelevant.

It’s not without risk of physical injury. I recently attended a gig where the performance was halted three times to allow medical aid to reach revelers who’d lost consciousness. But it was fellow gig-goers who alerted the venue to these injured people, holding up crossed forearms to call for help across the crowd, guarding them from harm, and kneeling to help the paramedics.

The combination of adrenaline-fuelled danger and comradery has huge appeal. You are protected, but also the protector. In the best moments, I live out my rage-fuelled fantasies safe in the knowledge that a room full of strangers had my back, as I have theirs.

There have been the odd exceptions; a few times where I’ve had to alert my male friend and sidle away to avoid a pressing body that’s gotten a bit too close. But overall, my experience as a woman in the mosh pit has been transformative.

I feel a greater love and unity with my fellow man/metalhead after almost every gig, and much to my surprise, stronger and more energized as a woman.

---

Genevieve Lowles is a writer, editor and children’s book illustrator who would probably be very excited to talk to you. She’s currently Writer/Editor at a national healthcare charity in the UK. She also edits Never Say No to Metal, a blog about metal music.

She can often be found halfway up a climbing wall, swimming in the Thames (the bit you’re allowed to swim in), and picking long, ginger hairs off her clothes and furniture.

You can follow her on Instagram, if you fancy.