Just how dangerous is a rock concert?

UNA Harrington is angry with the management of the Point. Her three eldest children - aged 16, 17 and 19 - came home to Mullingar last weekend shocked and upset by their experience at The Smashing Pumpkins concert.

Like many fans, they were caught in a crush her daughter, 5ft 4in tall, found herself pressed against a barrier that came up to her neck. All insist there was a lack of proper crowd control.

Una's children tell her rock concerts now are different from those she attended when she lived in London. But she disputes this. Like the other 40 and 50 something parents of this generation of teenagers, she reckons the basic concert is pretty much the same.

Sean, a Dublin father of four and still a rock fan, agrees: that's why he won't allow his children under 16 go to them unaccompanied. "I wouldn't entertain the notion," he says. "And if my 17 year old daughter wants to go, she'll be well warned. I remember at the Rolling Stones concert in Slane the way the crowd milled around close to the stage. They can be dangerous." The question is, just how dangerous?

Most parents had fears and reservations about concerts even before last weekend. Whether they'd been to events themselves, they all (rightly) associate rock concerts with drink, drugs, and hard to predict crowds. So they worried, even without knowing anything about crowd surfing and moshing.

And it's true that very few parents had heard about these practices until last weekend, although teenagers could have told them if they'd asked (see below). One teenage boy explained to a friend why he got so frustrated with his parents.

"They freak if he asks to go to raves, because of ecstasy. But he maintains that he doesn't take ecstasy and, that being the case, says he is much safer at a rave where everyone is all euphoric - peace and love and sorry for bumping into you. Yet they'll let him go to rock concerts, with all the violence that moshing and crowd surfing entails. `God love them,' says the boy, `but they're thinking of Rock Around the Clock and the rock concerts of their youth'."

How clued in are parents? If your child asked to go to the Ultra Sonic gig at the end of the month in the Point, would you know it was a rave band? Judging by my straw poll, no. And that boy is right. Whatever else parents disagree on, raves, spelt E-C-S-T-A-S-Y, are every parent's nightmare.

So far, most of us haven't taken in the dangers of crowd surfing and moshing. But it's a big problem all over. A copy of a Canadian paper from last Monday has a teenage feature page in which two high schoolers plead for an end to it: "When I pay $30 to see a band, I shouldn't come out of it with a broken nose."

Velda Conaty (17) from Killiney, Co Dublin, who with her 14 year old brother Rory went to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters gigs last year, says last weekend's death would make her stop and think. But she loves the buzz and hype of concerts. Her father, John, who reckons concerts are wilder than in his youth, thinks crowd control is the number one issue.

The Foo Fighters, incidentally, are a grunge band in the tradition of Nirvana (two ex Nirvana musicians are in its line up) and The Smashing Pumpkins. And rock pundits will tell you that the general level of frenzy, of crowd surfing, moshing, et al, is at its peak with such bands. Put it this way: If your teenager asks to go to the Sex Pistols/Iggy Pop gig in the Point (July 18th) or Foo Fighters (Feile, Point, July 12th), find out more.

This is the kind of information parents like Jim Quinlan from Athlone wants: he has always resisted pleas by his teenagers to go to Feile, but is currently negotiating with his 16 year old over the Oasis concert in August. If he agrees, he would get a ticket for himself, too, drive her and her friends to the concert, but stay well away from them.

And he'd enjoy it: "I like Oasis, they're quite Beatle-ish". Jim is also considering bringing his 11 year old Bon Jovi-mad son to the band's concert (July 13th, RDS, outdoors) "except that of course I'd stay with him". (There's consensus that a rock concert is no place for an unaccompanied 12 to 15 year old, with the exception of obvious baby rock bands like Boyzone, where most of the audience is under 15 or over 30.)

EVERY parent has to establish a policy on rock concerts. Bearing in mind that safety is the chief concern, there are some practical things you can do to help you make a decision. Psychologist Marie Murray says, ask your children (and try to find out yourself) who the group are, what kind of fans they have, what level of hysteria surrounds them.

Especially, find out if alcohol will be on sale. The National Parents' Council has urged the Government to ban alcohol sales at a concert that clearly will draw in under 18s. Irish Times rock writer Kevin Courtney says: Ask if they'll be sprayed, if there will be water - and says, as does Una Harrington, that parents should expect promoters to take care of their kids properly.

Even if you don't know what to expect, the promoters certainly should, and they should prepare adequately for it. Two deaths in the Point is two too many, and every parent knows how easily it could happen to their children.