MANSFIELD — He has long, dark-reddish hair and he has his head pointed toward the grass, bobbing rhythmically. His hands are held together in a cup, like he’s clutching die, and pumping up and down, side to side, while his feet two-step to the beat.
Myles Jaeckel is moshing. At first, alone.
Then, the 18 year-old from Columbus is joined by others who are thrashing, kicking and punching the air. He collides with them, their sweaty hair slapping against each other. And he wears the widest smile of them all.
“It’s just really fun,” he says between sets at Mansfield Music Festival. Ill Will, a band from Mansfield, is about to hit one of two stages — the fourth of 14 bands slated for Friday night.
Jaeckel is one of dozens of people moshing on Friday, at the base of the slopes at Snow Trails during the first night of Mansfield Music Festival. It’s where, not coincidentally, the festival’s first moshing competition is taking place.
By the end of the night, Empire Thai Boxing — a muay thai gym based in Toledo — will crown the festival’s first-ever Pit Boss.
“It’s based on technique, sportsmanship, but also maybe a lack of sportsmanship,” says Sally Jeanne, smiling. She’s one of the judges and the co-owner of Empire. She and her partner, Casey Ogan, have been observing the moshers all evening.
“I’m looking for props. Oh, and spinning. The ‘oh sh**!’ moment,” Ogan says.
There are two classes: flyweight and heavyweight. Each Pit Boss will receive an XFL jersey emblazoned with Empire’s logo and “Pit Boss” on the back. The number, 24, corresponds with the year.
Some of those wild fists and elbows land. One violently lands against Nate Gustovic’s right eye while Rust, a “beatdown” band from Toronto, plays. The skin around his bloodshot eye starts to swell when he says it doesn’t hurt.
“I’m used to it. I do MMA — I get hit in the face a lot,” he says. He calls what’s sure to become a black eye a “token of appreciation.”
“It’s a catharsis for aggression,” Gustovic explains of moshing. “It’s a somewhat controlled way to let out your feelings.”
Brothers Carter, 12, and Beau, 8, do their own version of moshing. They’re wrestling in the grass.
J. Lanir, 21, drove up from Columbus. His favorite subgenre of hardcore music right now, he says, is beatdown. During Rust’s set, his partner, catches a blow to the face. She’s OK.
“Beatdown music, you get the slower, deeper vocals and really heavy drums. It’s more aggressive. It’s an emotionally intense genre. And you mosh based off how the band makes you feel,” he says.
During one set, Lanir loses balance and falls to the ground. He curls up into a football. He he gets back on his feet, and he discovers his finger looks disfigured. He pops it back into place and keeps going.
“I mosh to show my appreciation to the band. It tells them, ‘I love what you’re doing,'” Lanir says.
From the outside, he concedes, it might look like a bunch of fools punching and thrashing for no reason. “But it’s also so loving,” he says.
Saffron Florey, 27, the lead singer of Slice agrees. During Salt’s set, she moshed. During the thrashing, her fist landed on guy’s nose. Broke it.
“I felt really bad,” she says after. “But he told me, ‘it’s OK. It’s a trophy.’ Then we took a picture together.”
As a frontwoman, Florey says seeing her peers mosh amps her up. And she loves seeing other women get in the pit. “It makes it more fun. It tells me I’m doing something right.”
Moshing, a brief history
Moshing has its roots in the 1970s and 1980s punk scenes of England, Washington, D.C. and Orange County California. It’s believed to have been preceded by “pogoing,” jumping up and down, hands and arms held tightly at the side.
The term itself is attributed to hardcore punk pioneer H.R. of Bad Brains. In the band’s 1982 song “Leaving Babylon,” H.R. commanded the audience to “mash.” At the time, H.R. was influenced by Jamaican sounds, and used an accent. The word has since been interpreted as “mosh.” It stuck.
Throughout the years, moshing has taken on different forms, depending on the music’s feel and culture. There’s the circle pit, where the crowd runs together in a circle, creating a sort of whirlpool. There’s the wall of death, where the audience splits down the middle and separates. Then, all of a sudden, the two sides collide against each other.
Mansfield Music Festival started “on a generator stage in a field in Lexington” in 2008, says Austin Moore. He attended that first event. In 2011, he performed in it as a guitarist for The Infantry. In 2012, Moore got permission to use the name and organize it into what it’s become today.
The early years showcased hardcore, metal, punk bands from the Mansfield scene. It’s morphed to include out-of-town bands and now also involves a wider array of genres. Saturday, for example, will have a hip-hop stage and a indie folk stage.
But one thing has always stayed consistent: moshing. “That’s definitely something that’s always been there from the beginning,” he says.
Just ask Jake and Jillian Henry, additional planners of MMF. Jake Henry, formerly Divebomb’s frontman, moshed in the pit during MMF’s first iteration in 2008. He hit Jillian in the process. They’re now married.
Moore, now 34, has played guitar for six or seven bands through the years, most notably The Infantry and Divebomb. Moshing in a push pit during a show in Galion way back in 2006 drew him in.
“Being able to go to that first show and run around like a madman, I thought ‘man this is fun.’ I had just started getting into that music and it was just a good time,” Moore says.
Pit Bosses crowned
Rain starts to fall on the moshers during Friday’s headliner, Violent Nature. Remember Myles Jaeckel? He’s now wearing the coveted “Pit Boss” jersey as Friday’s first flyweight champ.
“I’m wearing this thing to every show I go to from now on,” he says, wearing that same elated look on his face.
And the guy who gave Nate Gustovic a black eye earlier is Mike Herman. He’s 33 and from Xenia. He’s wearing the XXL jersey as Friday’s heavyweight champ.
The two moshers, soaked from sweat and rain, stand next to each other in the Snow Trails lodge at 11:30 p.m. They grin having earned the tongue-in-cheek title of the night. But if you ask them, they’ll tell you. They’re only two guys who showed up for a good time, just like the rest.