While thrashing and flailing in the FIDLAR mosh pit last week, my best friend and I locked eyes, and braced myself for her fist against my face.
The concept had mutated over the course of a decade. I had been a FIDLAR fan since 14, fresh out-of-braces and far before I knew any harsh realities they sang about. My early teen self would listen to their self-titled 2012 album at night, after my pious parents went to bed. I would whisper scream along about cocaine, and whores, and doing lines of cocaine with whores.
I wanted to see them every time they came to Denver, but something always came up. A family vacation. The death of a grandmother. It was never meant to be, but something about FIDLAR’s live performances intrigued me. And as a young gal with unrepentant rage, the mosh pit was what I looked forward to the most. Of course there were other, equally-moshable surf punk bands I indulged with violent dancing, but there was a FIDLAR-fueled catharsis awaiting activation.
In high school, I would joke that I had to mosh in a FIDLAR pit before I died. The bucket list bit evolved into something more intense each show of theirs I missed. At a point along the way, I started saying that I had to be going so hard, so fast, so violent, that I would get punched in the face during a FIDLAR show. And like music genres, the concept simplified and broadened to just a FIDLAR show with a face punch. I became obsessed with its destiny.
And last week at the Summit, the time finally came.
After confirmation she was up to the task (agreeing maybe too fast), my friend and I found ourselves mid-floor pre-mosh. We passed a beer between us through the opening band ALEXSUCKS, who were generic and drunk. The lights came up with our anticipation, and we nervously stared ahead at the stage being set.
Any FIDLAR fan knows of frontman Zac Carper’s struggle with addiction and subsequent bouts of sobriety, a change echoed in songs from their latest album, “Surviving The Dream.” With a band whose lyrics often touch on the dark side of drug use, their fans rarely take the hint. We were passing along a stranger’s joint of probably-weed when FIDLAR started playing their first song.
“It’s too hard to fix me, I know you’ll try…. No, I get high just to get by,” sang Carper while bandmates Brandon Schwartzel and Max Kuehn slammed on respective bass and drums. Not that any of us saw it. We were too busy slamming bodies.
I found myself stepping out of the pit often, less to avoid becoming ground meat, and more to gasp-sing along to a band whose lyrics I had grown up with. With my late-20’s perspective, I had to laugh at the absurdity of youth. Was it FIDLAR’s own juvenile tales I related to, or the act of wanting to relate?
The next song passed. And another. Soon, they were leaving the stage pre-encore. Panic swelled on behalf of my unfulfilled destiny, and I yanked my friend from the sweaty sea. At this point, she had become deeply concerned with mosh etiquette and announced, loudly:
“Everybody! She wants me to punch her! She’s asking for this and I am doing this with consent!”
With the sudden first notes of “Wake Bake Skate,” we were propelled back into the pit. I was struggling to catch my breath between hysterical laughter and the 200lb men crushing my chest. My friend and I found each other, gasping and singing, in the crowd as Carper sang, “I’m gonna try and make it for another year, just to hang out with my best friends and drink a lot of beer!”
She closed the gap. I held the little breath I had. And she lightly tapped me on the cheek.
She blamed her cop-out on unspoken mosh rules, but it didn’t matter. I was still in the pit, still breathing in the chaos, still laughing at the absurdity of it all. The plans had changed, but the music, and the joy of being alive, remained the same. And maybe that was the punchline after all.
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