Drop out of life with towel in hand

Tonight’s gig was… interesting.

I’ve had a few epiphanies regarding the modern music scene.

• Annotations Of An Autopsy, despite 70% of their studio output being brutal death metal and the other 30% being deathcore, have a fanbase predominately rooted in modern hardcore.
• A large chunk of the modern hardcore scene are ostentatious killjoy wankers. (I refuse to say all of the scene because I’ve got friends in the scene who are total exceptions to this and are actually really quite lovely, but tonight’s gig just proved how many wankers there are in that scene)
• Looking or acting metal is a bad move at a gig where the fanbase is predominately modern hardcore kids.
• Liking Black Flag won’t save you.
• Referencing Black Flag won’t save you.
• Liking more hardcore than any of the hardcore kids there won’t save you.

Annotations were great. But the crowd were just a bit dodgy… I shouted out to get a proper moshpit going, the frontman pointed at the kids slamming and hardcore dancing across the room and said “I thought this was a moshpit?”. Got jeered, so I shut up because I figured I was hopelessly outnumbered and a bit drunk, so carrying on would be a bad move.

Later, some dude was slamming and waving his arms about. Clouted me in the face, I’ve now got a lovely lump/cut on my eyebrow. I figured it’d be best not to make anything of it, seeing as the crowd already disapproves of my presence, so I just stuck up my arm to defend myself when he made his second pass, so as to avoid getting clouted again. His arm made contact with mine and he stopped, backed up and gave me the finger. I went up to him, apologised (I know, I shouldn’t be apologising to the douchebag who hit me, but I wanted to at least make sure there wasn’t any bad blood or anything). Said “Look, sorry, man. Hey, you’re here to have fun, I’m here to have fun, we’re all here for a good time, yeah? Sorry ‘bout that, we cool?”. He looked at me and just said “Fuck off.”. I tried again. I said sorry again. Another “Fuck off.”

Fuck that, seriously. I’m there trying to be nice and this douchebag is just being a total dick because I FUCKING DEFENDED MYSELF AGAINST HIS OBNOXIOUSLY DANGEROUS SLAMMING MOVES.

I mean, I’m okay with hardcore dancing as long as you’re actually making an effort not to smack anyone, and as long as if you do smack somebody, you man up and say sorry. Because they came to this gig for a good time as much as you did. Fuck, if I’m at a hardcore punk gig and there’s hardcore dancing, I’ll join in. I’ll two-step, I’ll slam. But if I hit anybody by accident I fucking apologise, and I try not to hit people. And tonight there were just these knobs literally charging into the edge of the crowd arms extended, fucking trying to go at people. 

MUSIC IS NOT ABOUT LOOKING COOL IN FRONT OF YOUR MATES. GIGS ARE NOT DANCE-OFFS FOR SLAMMERS. MUSIC IS ABOUT ENJOYING THE FUCKING MUSIC AND HAVING A GOOD TIME. 

Fuck, why do people take gigs so seriously? They’re meant to be fun. Moshing is fun. Hardcore dancing is fun. The only thing that isn’t fun is getting started on, getting into fights or people being dicks to you. Since when did that become acceptable?

I mean, the night before, we saw Turisas and Chthonic. Fucking amazing gig. If I shouted for a circle pit, there’d be one within seconds. Same as if anybody else shouted for one. “WALL OF DEATH!”? It’d happen. There was a guy I was speaking to before they started their set. He was in blue celtic body paint, I was in an Opeth shirt. He asked about the shirt, said he wasn’t an Opeth fan, but we then ran off a list of bands we did both enjoy and were like “Ehh, fuck it, you like something that I don’t, so what? Life goes on.”. And then half an hour later we were linking arms and jigging around the moshpit, or having a swordfight with a couple of inflatable swords we found. The whole atmosphere was just lovely, everyone was friendly and I even made a few new friends. Chthonic were just hanging around at the merch stand after the gig talking to fans, I had a good conversation with them and then got autographs and a round of hugs. Their guitarist even promised to get us a pint next time we see them when they tour with Arch Enemy. And between a couple of songs, Mathias from Turisas commented on the shitness of his can of Beck’s, and I yelled at him to try Hobgoblin. He shouted back “What, you think I don’t know Hobgoblin? Brilliant beer!” and then gave me a look as if to say “good call, man!”. And later, when everyone else was screaming for them to play Rasputin, I was one of about three people yelling for their cover of Supernaut, and he just looked at me like “dude. Seriously. Thank you so much for asking us to play something OTHER than Rasputin.”.

It was just a really, really lovely gig. Everyone was nice, friendly, everything like that, moshes were great, nobody was aggressive, it was just a lovely atmosphere.

And then Annotations… well, even though the music was good the crowd were just total dickheads. I felt totally out of place. And I shouldn’t. Nobody should ever feel out of place at gigs. Fuck, when Bob and I went to see Rob Zombie, we brought along his cousin. She dresses in mostly faded colours and slightly grandma-ish shirts, that kinda indie kid/hipster look. Everyone else was either metal as fuck or a bit goth-y. Nobody turned a blind eye, people seriously did not care that she looked out of place. She was still getting down to Dragula just like everyone else. And that’s what gigs are about. I mean, yeah, go with whatever look you feel comfortable in, but at the end of the day the only reason gigs exist is for music fans to go there, enjoy the music and have a good time.

And feeling uncomfortable for the way I look, being judged for wanting to mosh to heavy music and being almost started on is not my idea of fun.

Thing is, Annotations started out in the hardcore crowd with a very pigsquealy first EP. It was alright, really. Musically kinda shit but good stuff to mosh or throw down to. First and second albums got more death metally, the second album was practically tech death. It was really good. Then the new EP is back to deathcore, basically a big Emmure clone. Again, really mediocre but fun to throw down to. The problem is that they decided they don’t like the metal crowd, so they moved away from that scene. Which is fucking idiotic, because the point of metal is that it’s loud and it’s heavy, and if you’re playing with drums, bass, distorted guitars, harsh vocals and a sound that is in any way dark, then you’re gonna end up being metal, one way or another. So detaching yourself from the scene when you already have the sound is stupid. I mean, if you’ve got elements of two scenes, you should surely be trying to create some kind of unity between said scenes, not making them even more uneasy and tense around each other. And for fuck’s sake, some of the Annotations guys listen to Suffocation. I listen to Suffocation. So what’s wrong with having people like me as a fan, why am I worse than people who hurt each other and don’t apologise for it? 

Metal is not about having the look or listening to the most obscure or “kvlt” bands. Metal is about enjoying heavy fucking music, having fun and not being a twat. And I feel the invasion of modern hardcore is compromising that.

(which is stupid when you consider that Black Flag, violent though their gigs were, still weren’t ever about beating the shit out of each other and being surly cunts)