Wright of passage or: How I learned to stop worrying and love hardcore punk
There is this thing called “hardcore dancing.” It is essentially uninhibited energy that explodes through human vessels. People swing their limbs, kick, jump and spin without regard for who they may hit, or who may hit them. It’s animal, it’s violent and it is as much engrained in the hardcore punk scene as low hanging guitars and stretched ears.
The violence of the dancing is a direct reflection of the violent music. However, after my first hardcore punk show, I realized there is an order to the chaos of the seemingly anarchic noise.
My girlfriend Jordan Wright does not have the same taste in music as I do. I am more inclined to put on The National and drink tea than listen to the wailings, trashings and growlings of hardcore punk bands like Defeater. Early in our relationship I found that deep within this sweet, soon-to-be high school teacher, is a dormant nefariousness that seeks loud guitars and unrestrained noise in hardcore punk music.
In the spirit of new experiences, I agreed to accompany her to a Defeater show in Denver. The show was held at the home for punk in Denver, The Marquis. The sound of garbled vocals and distorted guitars led us to the venue like a harbinger for the insanity that was about to come.
Inside was an alarming mixture of attendees. Those at the show ranged from teenagers to 40-somethings. I looked at a girl, who couldn’t have been older than 16, and I wondered “do your parents know you’re here?” Also in attendance were people characteristic of a hardcore punk show. Basically the image you conjure when you think of hardcore punk is correct: stretched ears, tight jeans and tattoos of bands or childhood cartoons doing lewd things.
Jordan and I were posted up on the second level of the small, sweaty venue. Those below us arranged themselves shoulder to shoulder, despite having room to spread out, like a packed powder keg about to explode.
Before this show I had been to a number of punk shows. I didn’t anticipate the difference between punk and hardcore punk to be so dramatic. I had no idea that one adjective evolved the genre into an entirely different animal.
Mild shoving and attempts at moshing within the small crowd flickered and fizzled out during the opening acts. Once the final opener, Counterparts, came on before Defeater, the intensity I was warned of began to show.
Members of the band looked more like inked lumberjacks and downtrodden intellectuals than punk rockers. They did not resemble the mosh below them. It wasn’t until the vocalist began to growl, then scream that I realized they were the band and not the venue staff checking the levels.
Coinciding with the eruption of noise from the speakers was an explosion within the crowd. Members of the audience began swinging their arms violently and dashing around the dance floor. A moshpit developed immediately. Those within the pit spun their bodies and swung their arms, occasionally connecting a forceful blow to another member of the pit, but nothing stopped the energy. Onlookers around the pit extended a single fist in front of themselves to signify boundaries. This symbiotic relationship established surprisingly contained disorder.
Within the madness was burly guys, skinny guys and teenaged girls. The girls who weren’t participating in the controlled violence of the moshpit were being hoisted on top of the sea of people to crowd surf. Girls were being tossed onto the stage only to dive back into the hysteria. Structural beams of the venue and speakers doubled as diving boards for attendees to heave themselves into the crowd.
I sat observing this anarchy with Jordan, unsure if what I was seeing was normal or even socially or morally acceptable, and she sat unfazed. The hitting, spinning, surfing and absolute unrest was apparently only foreign to myself. This behavior continued for the rest of the night. Everyone was covered in sweat, and only took breaks between bands or during acoustic renditions.
My induction into the musical underworld of hardcore punk was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was truly lawless passion embodied in the audience and performance. Catharsis through destruction. However, through the veil of violence was really connection. No one there was angry at another person, they were just angry because the music reflected that emotion. I learned hardcore punk isn’t about hurting others, or screaming, or arbitrary noise, it’s about participating. The band could have been playing polka and it would not have mattered as long as the crowd reacted. Like a Jackson Pollock action painting, the product is not the point of the art, the beauty is in the mere action of participation.
Photos courtesy of Deviant Art
