Moshing in Philadelphia?

Well, we might get back to some sort of chronology now.

Leaving New York to head (kind of) south to Philadelphia, on the bus, is a bit like the opening credits from HBO's 'The Sopranos'. You go through the Lincoln Tunnel and then migrate out into New Jersey. Much of that initial scene is really quite industrial. Lot's of train tracks, warehouses and factories. And from the bus, it just seemed to go on and on.

I was now just travelling with Titus Auberon and Catherine Lennox. I think they were quite tired, partly from a surfeit of all the things that New York has to offer. After the filming of Late Night with Conon O'Brien, they had gone to a concert. All seemed very quiet on the bus, which made me feel just a little nervous. With others if would have been fine, but these two are usually so lively.

Of course I was worrying for nothing. The hostel in Philadelphia is fantastic. Really nicely decorated and the staff were fabulous. During part of my stay here I had to do quite a bit of work, and they were got the balance of friendliness and not interrupting me just right.

Titus and Catherine were on quite a tight schedule, so we were only in Philadelphia for a few days. They had arranged to see a few bands, at this concert venue. I definitely fancied it. Sounds like the sort of thing that I enjoyed when I was a teenager. And we all have to be in touch with our inner teenager.

We went up into the first tier pretty quickly. But down on the dance floor on the ground floor there was moshing (running around, crowd surfing, and boisterous bumping into others, to the tune). I was quite surprised, this sort of thing was quite popular in the UK in the early to mid nineties, but it has now died out in the uk (with the inception of New Labour in government?), all but for a few isolated cases.

The first few bands were really not great. But the final two were really fantastic. One in particular stood out, because they had two drummers. I wondered whether this was the ultimate example of teamwork....

So now onto Washington, and an unusual co-incidence...