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Wes Robertson was a face in a sea of people at an outdoor rock show in Salt Lake City in September 2006. Hoobastank was playing onstage-before he blacked out.
"I felt this pain in the back of my head and went black, and next thing I know I'm staring up into the sky with my friends looking over me," he recalls. "They said I got hit in the back of the head by a crowd surfer's foot."

The concussion and the head numbness subsided after a week or two, though he was only unconscious for less than a minute. Still, he laughs, smiles, and slaps the back of his head whenever he tells the story. Two months later, Robertson was back at it, crowd surfing during a Godsmack concert in November.
"I wasn't scared going back in, even after the accident," he says. "That's just what happens in the pit. You expect it."
Welcome to the mosh pit.
It's "the hub of a live music culture that is high on sex and violence... and no stranger to death," according to British author Joe Ambrose in his book Moshpit Culture. "At gigs worldwide fans literally hurl themselves into a pit. The result is a mass of seething bodies where fierce physical contact provides a brief, exhilarating escape from everyday life. The mosh pit means haphazard violence."
The general public seems to reflect Ambrose's description in their sentiments. After all, it seems at first glance that little good (if any) is to be had from hordes of teenagers and young adults throwing themselves blindly through a crowd, searching for an escape from a often mundane existence dictated by the confluence of social rules and pressures commonly referred to as "the man."
Toss in a hard rock or rap soundtrack, boisterous performers, the ubiquitous odors of marijuana and beer, a few blunt objects, and the stage is apparently set for a night of injuries, random sexual encounters, and general self-indulgent chaos. For a few hours, a small segment of society reverts back to its primal roots.
"Mosh pits are scary, totally unsafe," according to Brittany Rossi, a 19-year-old freshman at Utah Valley State College. "I feel like I'm going to be beat to a pulp if I'm ever near one. I've seen the way people come out of pits bleeding, or worse. People get moved by music, but moshing is a negative way of expressing it," she continues, matter-of-factly.
It's true that a typical mosh pit experience is not complete without a shiner and some significant post-concert discomfort. In fact, that's the expected result.
"What's the point?" asks Rossi. "Heck

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