Dangerous dancersa Slam dance special

This particular painting shows a hardcore punk gig at the Prince of Wales Hotel in St Kilda circa 1986. The band – Arm The Insane stand on a stage belting out some of the loudest, fastest, most distorted music you are ever likely to hear. The singer is shouting anarchist-themed lyrics, and the crowd loves it.

The band isn’t the focus here though, in the center of the image is the mosh pit. There are a hundred or so men, and a few women, who are thrashing and stomping about wildly, their arms and legs are going in all different directions, slamming their bodies into one another. There are skinheads, punks, metal-heads and an array of all kinds of weirdos going hell for leather in what to some might seem like a sort of restrained all-in brawl. Every minute or so a member of the audience climbs up onto the stage and turns to take a flying leap to land on top of the mosh pit’s frenzied dancers.

The wildness of this scene was something to behold. It had such a tremendous impact on me that more than twenty years after it happened I set about creating an abstract expressionist work of art to communicate a sense of being there amongst it all.

Note: I am in the background of this painting pashing on with a hot skinhead chick who has a pentagram tattoo on her skull.

Bert Ernie