Agalloch concert and Rules of the Metal Moshpit

So this past Friday (March 25th) I headed to London Ontario to see the American folk/black/doom/whatever metal band Agalloch.
Summary: Fucking Great Show

 concert 1/20 from 1001 days project.
Openers:
Musk Ox:
Acoustic neofolk musician from somewhere in Ontario (can't remember where he said). His music was beautiful and haunting. Reminded me a lot of Empyrium or some of Ulver's acoustic stuff. I thought it was a great way to start off the night. Great to have Don Anderson from Agalloch to come out and do a song with him. Kinda wish I had bought a cd from him now. 

Worm Ouroborus
I'm not exactly sure what genre these guys were, I think they said psychedelic doom metal or something like that. They were interesting, the type of band I didn't exactly like but I didn't dislike them either. It would probably be nice music to have on in the background while reading or studying or trying to fall asleep but not exactly something I want at a live show. I was focusing more on how much I wanted to sit down because my back was hurting than focusing on the band. The heavier parts of their music sounded better. I might check out their stuff for background music.


The Main Event: Agalloch
Fantastic. As my friend Brad said: they played a couple songs live better than on the album. When do you ever hear that? They played super tight and everything from them were awesome. They were super nice and hung around with the fans for ages after the show, signing stuff and chatting. A lot of bands run right off the stage and it's a matter of luck and chance whether you get to meet them but these guys made it a priority to hang around until most people had left.
The Crowd:
They made the crowd go crazy- actually the audience was the only bad part of the show. I really don't know what was up with people and I'm pretty sure a couple of the guys in the pit were high as fuck on something. I personally didn't even expect a mosh pit. I expected a lot of headbanging and cheering and all that carry-on but not an actual mosh pit.
A couple of the main characters of the pit:
1) blue shirt guy: One of two guys who I'm not even sure likes metal, he certainly did not look like a metalhead nor look like he knew how to act in a mosh pit. He also must have been very fucked up on some sort of drug because he was not natural. It got to the point where whenever he was near me I has punching/elbowing/pushing him as hard as possible- and I was not the only one, and he seemed impervious to it all. He also seemed to be doing something close to a hardcore dance type thing too. He was just fucked up and pissing off most of the people around who noticed him.
2) Leather jacket guy: another guy I'm pretty sure was fucked on something. He definitely was a metalhead and he knew the general rules of the pit. Other than the fact I don't think Agalloch is much of a moshpit show, his behaviour in the pit was fine. Any other heavier more crazy show he would have fit right the fuck in. The thing about him that was most annoying was he and his friends kept trying to get him up to crowd surf. Major problems there fucktard. Firstly there was no where near enough people. As the name 'crowd surfing' might suggest you need there to be a crowd to surf upon, not 2 rows of people in front of you. Also there wasn't a barricade, there was people against the stage. The problem there is that even if you get someone up onto the crowd there's no where to go other than on to the stage. This is highly annoying for the band as it often causes people to knock over important equipment, get in their way, or generally piss of the band by making stupid faces and poses beside them on stage. Over than lying on the stage between the crowd and the monitor this guy didn't actually get up there- why? because two of the band members pushed him off the stage with their feet. Yes you were literally kicked off stage by the band and verbally told by them to not do that so DON'T DO IT AGAIN. Oh, not to mention the 2+ failed attempts where his friends dropped him....HA.
I eventually got to the front of the stage where it's actually much safer than a row back because while you have people crashing into your band you are a lot less likely to go flying. He was behind me for most of the time I was up there and every time I turned around his eyes were closed and he was swaying around/ leaning on me. That's the main reason I thought he was fucked up. His friend wearing a Drudkh shirt was kinda hot but a bit of a douchenozzle in terms of behaviour but again he would have been fine at a bigger/crazier show.
 3) greek guy? This was a short fat balding middle aged potentially Greek man. Maybe Italian? I dunno, he just looked like the stereotypical little fat balding Greek man wearing a white wife beater and a sweater zipped super low exposing nasty chest hair. This was the other guy that I'm not sure was a metalhead.He was an angry mosher and had the bad habit of pulling people into the pit with him. He dragged me back and through the pit once which I was not happy about but meh, I wouldn't be at the front if  couldn't handle a little bit of pushing.


 Rules of the Metal mosh pit
It's really hard to explain what appropriate mosh pit behaviour is because to an outsider it looks like violent chaos anyways, but actually it's not.

 Don't be a douchebag. You don't actually punch and kick anyone. You are not in a fight. It's more like the concentrated act of letting go and running into other people who are running into you. If you do elbow or hit someone, expect to be hit back. Regardless if it is a circle pit or a moshing pit you flow with the energy of the people around you and that coming from the stage. If someone falls in the pit you immediately try and get them up as soon as possible.You don't just take a running start and jump into people that are not in the pit. You don't actually start fights with people who are not in the moshpit. You don't drag unsuspecting people into the mosh pit. Don't go into the pit or pit area unless you don't mind being pushed around. People along the rim of the pit should push the people who fly out of the pit back in. Try to avoid wearing overly spiky bracelets of shoulder spikes that can gouge eyes out. Men: don't grope girls. Women: don't expect guys to go easy on you (though I find they sometimes do).

101 Things in 1001 days

So I did one of these lists a couple years ago and I was actually able to accomplish a lot of the goals in the time. The project is from http://dayzeroproject.com/about/
1001 days is approx 2.75 years so it's a more realistic goal than a one year list or a general bucket list.
Coming up with 101 things is actually pretty hard but here's mine to be completed before December 15th 2013:

School

1. Finish Undergrad degree Walking across the stage June 8
2. Get Master's degree
3. Get PhD
4. Get published
5. Get a job in the medieval field (in a university, library, archive, museum etc)
6. Pay off student loans
7. Make at least one person realize the relevance and value of metal in academia
8. Apply to all my top grad schools Applied and was accepted to.

Fitness

9. Become more muscle than fat- fuck the scales
10. Work out regularly= 4+ times a week, every week
11. Start running.
12. Swim once a week
13. Increase flexibility
14. Do yoga regularly again

Life

15. Travel to at least 5 new countries (1/5 Denmark)
16. Travel to 10 new countries
17. Travel to 20 new countries
18. Teach English overseas
19. See the Northern Lights
20. Do a castle tour of England
21. Castle tour of Ireland
22. Go dogsledding
23. Bungee jump
24. Skydive
25. Try couchsurfing
26. Hitchhike
27. Write a fantasy novel (with Vikings)
28. Get that book published
29. Read 50 books every year
30. Read 10 books set in Scandinavia (1/10)
31. Read a book by someone I disagree with (the following two don't count)
32. Read the entire Bible
33. Read the Qur'an and the Hadith
34. Write up critiques of the three
35. Become fluent in Norwegian
36. Learn Old Norse - in progress
37. Read the Eddas in original- Never going to happen.
38. Go to Svalbard
39. Swim in a fjord
40. Learn Finnish
41. Live in Finland
42. Learn how to properly sword fight
43. Complete my chainmail hauberk
44. Get my Viking ship tattoo
45. Live 'off the grid'
46. Get a vertical labret piercing
47. Go on a cruise- kinda, I've been on two single night cruises.
48. Try 10 new beers (10/10: Kozel, Faxe Premium, DAB Original, Victory Pils, plus several ales and meads at Kalamazoo)
49. Learn to really like wine
50. Drink mead  Completed May 15, 2011 at Kalamazoo
51. Bake a homemade apple pie
52. Get my driver's license
53. Get my motorcycle license
54. Ride on a motorcycle
55. Eat reindeer
56. Get over my fear of new foods
57. Go to a Viking festival
58. Learn how to properly scream (as in metal screaming)
59. Attend Wacken Open Air
60. Attend 20 000 tons of metal
61. Attend a metal festival I think I'm going to combine 61-62 by saying I went to a Black metal festival. Hole in the Sky 2011.
62. Go to a black metal show
63. Touch a rare manuscript (with gloves on of course)
64. Pet a wolf
65. Don’t speak a single word all day
66. Meet Mathias Nygard and nerd out with him
67. See Turisas live
68. See Satyricon live Hole in the Sky 2011
69. See Marilyn Manson live
70. Learn how to do tablet weaving
71. Make an authentic Viking woman outfit
72. Not go online for a whole week
73. Go kayaking
74. Camp 5 times
75. Go winter camping
76. Buy a proper backpacking backpack complete August 9th 2011.
77. Hike up a taller mountain than Mount Bitihorn (1607 metres)
78. Go to 20 concerts (9/20)
79. Drink only water for a week
80. Get a Kindle July 18th 2011, Mom got me one for my birthday
81. Do something different with my hair
82. Watch 20 new movies- I haven't been keeping track but I've must have seen 20 movies by now.
83. Watch all LOTR movies in one day (preferably with wolfpack)
84. Try snowboarding again
85. Make Irish soda bread (Feb 2012)
86. Volunteer for a secular organization
87. No Coke for a month
88. Whiten teeth
89. Buy new pants
90. Donate to a rat rescue
91. If not in a position to own another rat then foster one
92. Watch every episode of Dr. Who
93. Eliminate 'like' from vocabulary
94. Cook someone else a meal
95. Avoid getting a defibrillator for as long as possible
96. Have a real relationship (hah!)
97. Private
98. Private
99. Private
100. Get someone else to do a 101 things in 1001 days list
101. Be awesome! -complete 

Things I want to accomplish eventually in life:

1. Adopt a cat
2. Get 2 Rottweilers and name them Xena and Ares
3. Buy a house
4. Buy a cottage in the Norwegian or Finnish countryside
5. Laser eye surgery
6. Get a tubal ligation

So I'll make a post here if I complete any of these goals.