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The following appeared in the Community Newspaper/Flint Journal. Copy and photo by Jared Field.

BIRCH RUN, Michigan — It’s a rare treat for me to stick out like a sore thumb.

As an average-looking guy, I have a way of resolving into a crowd and maintaining a low profile – a characteristic I rather enjoy.

But all that changed for a couple hours last weekend at “Dirt Fest,” an outdoor metal music festival that featured nearly 70 bands at the Birch Run Expo Center.

Suddenly, I was weird looking; I was a square — an establishment-looking guy with a camera and a visage that screamed: “what on earth did I get myself into?”

It was just minutes before morning broke into afternoon when I was thrust to the front of a line of “metalheads” that snaked around the entrance to the Expo Center grounds.

I was to meet with members of the Clio-area metal band, I Decay, before their early afternoon set on the main stage.

And so, under one of the dozens of merchandise tents staked into asphalt, I played my gig as a reporter.

I interviewed several of the guys who, as it turned out, were much more hospitable than they looked — heck, they even offered me a sandwich, a cold drink and a seat in a rocking chair.

From there, they proceeded to fill me in on all the details of their band’s rise from nothingness to what can only be called, at least at this point in their evolution, somethingness.

The guys preached the value of diligence and good old-fashioned hard work – the kind of work that landed them a U.S. tour with Mushroomhead and a management contract with Metal City Entertainment in Detroit.

They talked about their roots and their pride in still claiming Clio as their hometown.

I wondered: Were these the fire-spewing hell raisers I read about on the Internet?

The Show

Yes.

They were the fire-spewing hell raisers I read about on the Internet — and they had friends.

Fans of bands with names like Desiring Dead Flesh, Algore and Arsonists Get All The Girls poured onto the grounds and promptly made their way to one of six sponsored stages.

These were the aforementioned “metalheads,” mostly dressed in black and sporting objects on their persons that I could only loosely define as accessories – spikes, helmets, gas masks, you name it.

In front of the stage stood a rabble of teenagers intertwined with a smattering of middle-aged adults who welcomed I Decay to the festival with a fist-pump, head-bang or raised middle digit.

From there, it was every man, woman and child for themselves.

How I learned to hardcore dance

Only 20 minutes into the 40-minute set, I was involuntarily baptized into the world of hardcore dancing.

Holding my camera high so as not to break the lens, the force of the crowd (i.e. a husky 30-something with a low center of gravity) knocked me into the guardrail separating the crowd from the stage – this was like no dancing I had ever experienced.

From I Decay’s very first power chord, the crowd almost instinctively encircled a handful of revelers who, I came to find out, were hardcore dancing.

The more sophisticated variant of the notorious “mosh” or “slam-dancing,” hardcore dancing is one of the most confounding things I1ve ever witnessed.

Young men began the dance by marching around in circles, all with very determined looks on their faces.

At varying points during the performance, the dancers collided in the center and attempted to drive one another into others locked in combat. Meanwhile, those not grappling with perfect strangers were blindly flailing their fists and elbows in what looked like a feeble attempt to free themselves from a wet paper sack.

A few moments later, they picked themselves up, dusted each other off, and re-joined the circle.

It was Ring around the Rosie gone horribly wrong.

I overheard one fan ask a security guard if “moshing” was allowed at the festival (as other festivals have disallowed the practice in recent years). His answer was yes, as long as it was kept under control.

I guess it’s like reckless driving set to music, only with both hands on the wheel.