The Village People are known around the globe as indisputable disco legends. They’re so far removed from the killer riffs and brutal screams of metal, but it seems the crowd at Chicago’s Riot Fest forgot that.
The band earned their metal cred when they broke into timeless classic ‘YMCA’ and ‘Macho Man’. Immediately the audience erupted in the perfect metal fashion.
‘YMCA’ is one of those songs that everyone gets up to dance along to. It’s as long and as cursed as the Nutbush, which seems to last ten lifetimes. However, the Riot Fest attendees weren’t content with just spelling out the letters with their arms. Instead, the concert-goers busted into a wall of death, a popular occurrence at metal shows where the crowd parts like the Red Sea and then storms into each other. There was even some hilarious looking crowd surfing to top it off.
The Village People followed ‘YMCA’ up with their next biggest hit, “Macho Man”, which the crowd appeared to take literally. A circle pit formed as the upbeat dance tune soundtracked the chaos. All in all, it looked like one hell of a time.
We all know that the mosh can have its ups and downs. Just recently, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor had to stop a concert due to an unruly mosh.
And just a few weeks ago, concertgoer actually died following Slipknot’s show ‘Knotfest’ at Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, Illinois, after collapsing to ground when he was thrust out of a mosh pit.
Richard Valadez, 62, was moshing with other concertgoers during a Slipknot set in Chicago, when he was knocked to the ground and began seizing up. After an initial delay in any form of medical assistance, Valadez was pronounced dead at 11:34 PM local time, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The cause of death is not yet known and an autopsy is currently pending from a medical examiner. Tinley Park Fire Chief, Forest Reeder, said that his department did not respond to the emergency call due to jurisdictional issues.
