usernamesarethebane

I was once in the front of a crowd at an Amon Amarth show. This was way back in like 2006, I think? Anyways, there was a break between songs and I stood on my tiptoes to try to sneak a picture of the band over this gigantic motherfucker standing in front of me.

Unfortunately, they decided to start playing "Death In Fire" at that very moment. You know that drum intro that kicks in? Yeah, that spins up some mean moshpits. I got knocked over. I was pushing myself up, and I looked up to see a boot coming right at my face. Shit. Crack. Blood.

Lots of blood. Here I am standing in the middle of the pit, blood pouring into my hands, and the dude who kicked me in the face is apologizing profusely. He didn't mean to kick me, it just happened. Anyways, I'm standing there and this tiny chick, probably 5'0", 100lbs jumps into the maelstrom and drags me out. She takes me to the bathroom to patch my face up. On the way up the stairs, a dude is coming out of the bathroom, looks at me, looks at my face, and yells: "HELL YEAH, I SEE THE PIT HAS STARTED! SEE YOU BACK DOWN THERE!", flashes me the horns, slaps me on the back, and skips down the stairs.

This poor girl returns to helping me fix my completely fucked up nose, and we head back down.

Amon Amarth quit playing shortly after that, and got off the stage. I was sitting at the bar, since I didn't really care about the headliner (Children of Bodom, for those wondering). A few minutes later, Johan (the lead singer) comes to the bar and sits down next to me. He says "Are you the one who got kicked in the face? Let me buy you a beer!" So I got to drink a beer with Johan Hegg. It was sweet.

Long story short, yeah they're super nice guys.

Nope! I thanked her for cleaning my face up and helping me out, then she went on her merry way. Pretty sure she was a wood elf or something, she floated between metal shows to help the hapless souls who ended up getting their faces kicked in in the moshpit.

Hey Brian,

First off, my wife and I are HUGE fans of Snakebytes! What inspired you to start that up? It was a great idea, and I look forward to every installment. Can't wait for AnimalBytes!

When you guys played at Red Rocks and Neil joined y'all on stage for Blood and Thunder, I literally shit a litter of kittens.

My life will never be the same. It was excellent. What do I do with all these shit kittens?

Yes, but experience helps mitigate risk factors in the mountains. Even still, Mother Nature is in ultimate control on any mountain, and she can kill you at any moment, prepared or not.

I've never been to Everest or the Himalayas, and in the presence of those who have I am hesitant to even call myself a mountaineer, but I can look back at my mountaineering career and pick out numerous times where I was sketched out by something that would not even register on my radar today. With growing skill comes growing ability to handle, evaluate, and mitigate risk, which I think is what he's getting at.