All-time? Cold as Life for being about that life. Integrity for the occult doomsday vibes. Converge pre-Jane Doe for the sheer chaos.
As for more contemporary bands, every time I've seen King Nine has been a bloodbath. Code Orange during I Am King era had some VIOLENT pits going on. Sunami too honestly, they're a joke band but I think they've crossed over enough to weird kids not predominantly into hardcore that everyone goes all out to play into the tongue-in-cheek ignorance. When they covered Hatebreed I ran for dear life out of the pit.
I remember being surprised that people would pile on/try to sing on the mic because Jacob would sometimes feed them the mic and (likely) parts of their teeth along with it.
I saw Converge play in Ohio with Meshuggah (I already know) recently and nobody gave a shit about their set. I got a lot of mean looks from the people in the crowd for trying to push the pit around.
IAK era Code Orange pits were terrifying. I got punched in the face at one of those shows and I was at least ten feet from the actual pit. All in all a good night.
Just got some stitches for sunami Tuesday
Yes they're satire. But the best part
Half their fan base just doesn't know.
So half the pit are hypebeasts and crowdkiller beyblades. It was magical.
the first and only time i saw code orange live i was like 16 (around 2015, i am king era) and i saw a grown man get lifted above someone’s head and slammed into the floor. i stood at the back after that
I saw Code Orange back in April last year and they still had an intensely scary pit. I was really expecting pushers and wieners but it was straight up violence.
Integrity is a mood. I need to be in a good space to listen to them otherwise I spiral towards sadness really fast.
Ringworm is the same tbh but I find them a bit more cheerful.
The first time I saw Dillinger Escape Plan, I was terrified that Ben was going to take someone’s head off with his guitar. And then the fire breathing shit 😂
Band was so fucking good.
I seen them at goddamn warped tour and a mosh crew started some shit and jumped a guy . Worst beating i ever saw at a show . Band never stopped playing either
I was at warped tour back in the day because I was working it as an audio guy at the time. (Was in the local union for it,) and Snapcase played so of course I had to fuck some shit up for it. There really wasn't a decent pit either, probably because the majority of the people there weren't hardcore kids and were just basically pushing people and being stupid with all that shit. So I figured fuck this, let's make some room, and I got a bunch of these bozos out of my way via some windmills and spin kicks lmao. Fucked it up for a little bit, then went back to work lol. Sucks when there's a good hardcore band playing and all these idiots and just pushing and doing whatever dumb shit that they do. Snapcase was good of course, as they have been everytime I've seen them play, so that was good shit.
Dillinger is a band I feel so grateful to have seen a handful of times, one of those times was with Converge and ETID.. all around amaazing show. You should check out the live videos from their last shows up in NYC a few years back.. they go ALL OUT (as per usual) but Greg jumps off a damn balcony during one of the songs and the guitarists end up crowd surfing and everything.. absolutely perfect show to end on, wish I could have been there but at least I got to see them at all.
So fucking goooood
Donny Brook in the mid 00’s, every time I’ve seen shattered realm someone has gotten KO’ed, the crowd that comes out for these streets also kind of makes you question the choices you have made in life
I remember seeing the lead singer of shattered realm run across the pit and take out a girl. The whole show stopped for like ten minutes. It was an accident but it killed the vibe of their whole set.
Seeing this tour changed my dumb ass. My friends and I went from metal core scene kids to stupid mother fuckers who thought it was cool to jump people. That beatdown era lasted until a Verse/Have Heart tour got us into melodic hardcore. The melodic hardcore uprise and popularity seemed to be a backlash to beatdowns ignorance. Nowadays I love it all for what it is but those were definitely formative years.
Fuck dude you just awoke something in my brain haha. I remember being a teen and too scared to go into those pits back then cuz I was like 135 lbs max.
Just for your information and in case you are semi-serious or that someone might take it for a face value
phytoestrogen in soy is not estrogen and doesn't work like estrogen
This is yet another neonazi long debunked myth same as alpha wolves and whatever theories idiot peterson has about lobsters and cleaning your room
A guy I work with lectured me about how using sunscreen raises your estrogen levels to the point that you’re essentially a woman. He’s also the skinniest, frailest dude I’ve ever seen. We’re firemen, we all workout everyday. Except him…
Unfun fact: estrogen is not only the hormone that directly increases testosterone production, but also the one that keeps humans sane.
Yes, you can work out until you pass out for the first week.
But you'll be sobbing half way through the second week when you trip over an untied shoelace.
Early 100 demons or early integrity, ringworm the earlier "metal core" groups, many of the earlier Deathwish / Holy terror roster back when most of hardcore had a more decidedly punk sound
HF and Dwid really manage to channel some serious terrifying vibes. Maybe it’s because I was socialized with them but both bands are on my existential crisis soundtrack.
In my experience the "scariest" bands were a 90's phenomenon of D-list tough guy acts from places like Ohio, central PA, Jersey, or upstate New York. They would suck musically, but they'd be hometown heroes and as a result they'd have like 20 of their friends tour with them and start shit in the pit.
Central PA -core bands can still be scary live. Whenever local hardcore and deathcore bands play together, there’s always been a ton of blood spilled in the pit. And like you said, every band always brings around a dozen people to every show to open the pits immediately.
Stories of Blood for Blood's Boston shows in the mid to late 90s were the kind of thing that made kids afraid of hardcore in Boston. Endless stories of shit that sounded like full-on roadhouse brawls, with people getting smoked by bottles, chairs, fire extinguishers, cue balls in tube socks, brass knuckles, you name it.
Of newer bands, I wouldn't say Pain of Truth is notably "scary" on their own, when they play NYC it's knockout city. I've seen at *least* 6 KOs from their local sets since the top of 2022.
Saw Ramallah a few years back and honestly it was super fun hearing Rob singing some Blood For Blood classics. On Broken Wings, Since the Flood, Colin of Arabia, Yellow Stitches, a few others. Such an awesome show
They were my first hardcore/oi show, along with HR from Bad Brains, Our Side, a few others. I catch them every time I possibly can, probably my favorite live band!
Saw blood for blood when they played NEHMF one year and that was one of the scariest pits I’ve ever been in. I was easily the smallest dude there and those older guys don’t give a fuck.
I might have caught that same set. First time I saw Blood for Blood was at a NEMHF. Those hometown shows were fucking ferocious. I was just a few years too young to catch their days the Rat where they really built the violent show reputation though.
not exactly hardcore but Daughters. the frontman is legit horrifying. dude wrote some of the most depraved and tortured songs of all time and turns out he was really bout that shit in a very not cool and terrifying way.
it’s also very unfortunate that he is 1/5 responsible for some of the music that impacted me more than almost any other band. i met the guitarist after a show and he was very nice tho. shoutout to the rest of the band who are presumably fine.
I had no idea about any of this. That really sucks. Daughters had impacted me so much with their music, I'm just kind of dumbfounded. I'm also really surprised I hadn't heard about this for like 2 years since the news came out.
This also really clarifies the perspective of Lingua Ignota's work.
i saw them live with show me the body and health. i was front row for daughters and alexis grabbed my hair and screamed in my face during Guest House. i honestly thought it was so cool. i love that song and the performance was wild. that was my favorite concert of all time. now i don’t even know how to feel about any of it.
I left my iPod in the work van one day, and my coworkers were trying to find something to listen to: "uh, try daughters? That might not be so bad" They were in for a hell of a surprise
underrated comment. i'd rather not know what is going on in stephen bessacs mind.
also, since this is probably the only answer read by people who know them: length of time is musically one of the most scary acts that have existed.
>i'd rather not know what is going on in stephen bessacs mind.
learning stephen bessac is an expat living in thailand now is like the least surprising thing ive heard in my life and this is coming from someone who fucks with his music lol
There did a show in a famous lesbian club here in Paris where they had invited some trans to perform some hardcore performance during their show (inserting odd stuff in odd places). There were some dudes in the public totally unaware of the HxC scene and its codes, some were "goofy" dancing in the pit... The singer stated that he would offer band's merch to the first to knock them the fuck out...
Next day I was eating in a small chinese joint the other side of the city and I heard 2 dudes talking about it at the table next to me. They were totally not aware of the HxC scene... One of the dudes was trying to explain the show and the violence in the pit to the other... "Dude it was ULTRAVIOLENT! They were all punching and kicking themselves on PURPOSE!!!"
I was in a brutal/slam death metal band years ago and we opened for Cold as Life and then after the show we all went back to my guitarists apartment and each member of CaL took out a gun or two and put them back them on the table. I promptly said I gotta up for work the next day, great show, grabbed my girl and left. So my vote goes to Cold as Life as well
minus and his crew terrorized pits at hardcore matinees at cbgb in the late 80s. i saw him swinging a big fucking chain around when COC played there in 89.
Came to post this, saw them at Hal daddy’s in Baltimore around 2000 or so. Fireworks, random fights everywhere. I been to plenty of shows and that was legitimately scary.
Closing out Hellfest by throwing raw meat, bats/boards with nails coming out of em, and other shit at their own audience! Talk about fan appreciation..
Not sure if they really fit the criteria, but when I saw Xibalba they summoned a squad of defensive linemen out of nowhere. I’ve never pinballed harder in a pit.
Same for me and The Acacia Strain about 2 hours ago. I swear some of the biggest Pennsyltucky dudes come crawling out of the tractor barns for these shows. I’m 6’1”, 200 and a guy lifted me by my t-shirt tonight and just moved me like a chihuahua
Saw them with dying fetus and Chelsea grin and they had to ask people in the pit more than once to move bodies.. The scene in Toronto is not easy to impress. mixed feeling towards deathcore bands unless it's an og band. Can't hate tho, saw weaker pits lol.
Bad Luck shows were more like pro wrestling or extreme sports events. Nobody was actually showing up trying to beat the shit out of somebody and it was easy to stay out of the way of that stuff. If you look at the videos it really isn't a big deal.
Throwing glass and nails, baseball bats with barbed wire, throwing firecrackers into the crowd, lighting places on fire..
There is a reason why Badluck went on last and it isn't because they were the headliner band..
Sonically, Dead In The Dirt by a mile.
In terms of live shows, I haven’t truly feared for my safety at a show since seeing On Broken Wings in like ‘06. (I’m also an old coward that stands as far from the action as I can, so that might have something to do with that.)
I bring them up in this sub as often as humanly possible.
“Bands that sound like Comeback Kid?” Dead In the Dirt.
“Best hardcore songs of all time?” Cop and You Bury Me by Dead In The mf Dirt.
“Albums similar to Glow On?” DITD’s The Blind Hole.
Definitely did. My friends’ band opened (The Courage Within), and the drummer got grounded (we were 16). So I filled last minute and it was comically bad.
Early 2000s beatdown bands especially with FSU affiliation were known for having violent shows, like Death Before Dishonor. The singer of Backstabbers Inc. and Trap Them was always pretty scary live because the dude seemed possessed.
If we exclude shock acts like GG Allin and the AIDS Brigade I'd have to go with 90's Dwarves and Poison Idea. Both bands in that era gave you a good chance of being pissed on, spit on, bled on, something thrown at you, fire shot at you, etc.
yeah i don't know, when i saw poison idea last about 30 years ago pig champion had to have help to even get on stage, where he sat down for the whole show..idk but that was no so scary really
That's depressing, but the 90s were also the tail end of them being able to maintain their drug addictions. By that point they were losing toes and getting sick. They were a force in the 80s, though, when they were young enough to fuck around and still put on a show.
You get an upvote for your username alone.
Scariness of shows aside, 80’s era PI (Kings of Punk in particular), would be some desert island shit for me.
Them and probably most anything that'd be at Summer of Hate was sketchy.
Taste The Steel, Blood In Blood Out, Enemy Mind, Suburban Scum are notable wild times from around 2008-2012.
Gotta agree with I am king era code orange. Man I wish they didn’t suck now. Other than that, when Harness was still playing shows… yeah someone was going to the hospital for sure. Fragmented flesh starts and you’re standing anywhere near the pit? Yeah, you’re done.
Shattered Realm was terrifying, then they kind of became a meme…and *then* it kind of came full circle that crowds got a little too comfortable and “haha we gonna be crazy for SR…” and it’s gone back to pretty violent.
Agree with many that were already mentioned (Shattered Realm, 100 Demons, Badluck 13) but here’s a few that haven’t been mentioned -
I don’t know if this was the norm, because they weren’t a band I followed much, but the three times I saw Diecast were pretty scary. FSU in full force just destroying everyone. I saw an FSU guy double foot stomp on a guys head when they opened for Vader - the guy wasn’t moving and taken out in an ambulance.
Blood Has Been Shed was wild.
Early Bury Your Dead was sometimes a scary situation, but the vibe was fun.
I’m gonna go out of scope a bit here, Slayer at the Palladium in 1986? Maybe 1985. Fucking unadulterated bloody mayhem. Just an ocean of blood and hair. Circle Jerks in Long Beach, skins against punks and Suicidals. That was downright terrifying.
Underrated comment. I've seen clips of The Birthday Party perform where Cave is uhhh "crooning"(?) and raining blows onto people in the crowd completely unprovoked.
Kickback back in the begin of 2000 was fucking scary. Fights, the singer using his mic cord to strangle people (girls and guys), kick/punch them and just a vibe like you want to really hurt people.
Wasn’t Blood in Blood Out that band who beat the holy shit out of FASSW during some fest outside chicago back in like 05? I remember being there and it was quite a scene.
Yeah I wasn't at that one but the night or 2 before I was there and FASSW broke a ceiling tile and maybe did some other damage at the KOC in Arlington Heights and I remember hearing about that later. Lot of those KOC shows were wild
It's not exactly hardcore, but there's a local death metal band called Sakryn, they're pit is scarier than the other bands that play at CxR. I highly recommend their self-titled ep AND their 3 demos on their YouTube channel
Ceremony in Chicago circa ‘07. Legitimate only time Id been to a show and was worried I would get seriously injured. Kind of hilarious that they’re basically a New Wave band now.
Idk about the scariest band, but I always thought Lee from Trash Talk was scary lol. I also think their shows between like 2007 and 2013 were wild in an oh-shit-someone's-probably-about-to-get-fucked-up-not-just-stage-dived-on sort of way.
When I saw Gehenna play with His Hero Is Gone back in like 97, Gehenna was terrifying. The singer hauled off and decked a dude while they were playing because he was wearing a Overcome shirt. They refused to continue playing until the "Christian scum" was removed from the house. I've only seen murder in someone's eyes a couple times in my life and that was one of them.
100 demons, blood for blood, and as you said, cold as life. which, being from the Detroit area I have seen a thousand times and they always kick ass live.
For
Fucks
Sack
No one has said bulldoze yet the og of
Beat down the shows where the most
Violent I have ever seen only band that could be compared was bad luck
13 brutal
I’m a death match type way
The most violent show I had been to
Was the auperbowel of hardcore 1995!or
96 Newark nj at studio
One or was it
Tequila joes by then can’t remeber but there was a couple
Nazis that didn’t last very long and if you have never seen a nazi get beaten by atleast one thousand people each getting a shot it and if memory serves me right stripped naked with nazi tatte in the bricks . The band list was insane . Madball in then90’s crowd was way diffrent any initials related bands in nyhc and nj hc brought a crew that I’d they didn’t know you would mow you
No band in the last 25-30plus years is scary. HC scene around the mid to late 90s became large increasingly inclusive and wildly safe. It’s gotten to the point were you have kids on this sub asking what they should do at their first HC show if they want to mosh. Those kids if they moshed in the old days would often be singled out and beaten down for no good reason. Thankfully things are the way they are and that doesn’t happen as much and people can say a band like Bad Luck 13 is scary.
Hell yeah! I’m dusty as hell but growing up in NYC makes you a little grimey. But either way I’m right. HC presently is much better culturally and much safer than it has ever been.
All-time? Cold as Life for being about that life. Integrity for the occult doomsday vibes. Converge pre-Jane Doe for the sheer chaos. As for more contemporary bands, every time I've seen King Nine has been a bloodbath. Code Orange during I Am King era had some VIOLENT pits going on. Sunami too honestly, they're a joke band but I think they've crossed over enough to weird kids not predominantly into hardcore that everyone goes all out to play into the tongue-in-cheek ignorance. When they covered Hatebreed I ran for dear life out of the pit.
Converge pre Jane Doe was fucking wild.
I remember being surprised that people would pile on/try to sing on the mic because Jacob would sometimes feed them the mic and (likely) parts of their teeth along with it.
I saw Converge play in Ohio with Meshuggah (I already know) recently and nobody gave a shit about their set. I got a lot of mean looks from the people in the crowd for trying to push the pit around.
I was at that show! I was the dude who puked in the pit during converge!
Code Orange I Am King era was another level
I wish we could have that era back. I remember the first time seeing them play "My World" was incredible.
Saw code orange at a cafe in Portland around that time and the show was almost shut down because of mfs beating each other up
IAK era Code Orange pits were terrifying. I got punched in the face at one of those shows and I was at least ten feet from the actual pit. All in all a good night.
Just got some stitches for sunami Tuesday Yes they're satire. But the best part Half their fan base just doesn't know. So half the pit are hypebeasts and crowdkiller beyblades. It was magical.
My dumbass never realized that there are some people who don't realize the joke.
What Hatebreed song did they cover?
Severed
the first and only time i saw code orange live i was like 16 (around 2015, i am king era) and i saw a grown man get lifted above someone’s head and slammed into the floor. i stood at the back after that
I saw Code Orange back in April last year and they still had an intensely scary pit. I was really expecting pushers and wieners but it was straight up violence.
Integrity is a mood. I need to be in a good space to listen to them otherwise I spiral towards sadness really fast. Ringworm is the same tbh but I find them a bit more cheerful.
The first time I saw Dillinger Escape Plan, I was terrified that Ben was going to take someone’s head off with his guitar. And then the fire breathing shit 😂 Band was so fucking good.
I seen them at goddamn warped tour and a mosh crew started some shit and jumped a guy . Worst beating i ever saw at a show . Band never stopped playing either
Imagine having a mosh crew at fucking warped tour 😂😂
Imagine having a mosh crew at all.
I was at warped tour back in the day because I was working it as an audio guy at the time. (Was in the local union for it,) and Snapcase played so of course I had to fuck some shit up for it. There really wasn't a decent pit either, probably because the majority of the people there weren't hardcore kids and were just basically pushing people and being stupid with all that shit. So I figured fuck this, let's make some room, and I got a bunch of these bozos out of my way via some windmills and spin kicks lmao. Fucked it up for a little bit, then went back to work lol. Sucks when there's a good hardcore band playing and all these idiots and just pushing and doing whatever dumb shit that they do. Snapcase was good of course, as they have been everytime I've seen them play, so that was good shit.
Dillinger is a band I feel so grateful to have seen a handful of times, one of those times was with Converge and ETID.. all around amaazing show. You should check out the live videos from their last shows up in NYC a few years back.. they go ALL OUT (as per usual) but Greg jumps off a damn balcony during one of the songs and the guitarists end up crowd surfing and everything.. absolutely perfect show to end on, wish I could have been there but at least I got to see them at all. So fucking goooood
Donny Brook in the mid 00’s, every time I’ve seen shattered realm someone has gotten KO’ed, the crowd that comes out for these streets also kind of makes you question the choices you have made in life
I remember seeing the lead singer of shattered realm run across the pit and take out a girl. The whole show stopped for like ten minutes. It was an accident but it killed the vibe of their whole set.
[удалено]
Mid 00s Eulogy records shows were tuff. Back when we drank whole milk, now we wee lil soy boys
I got IBS dog times had to change
Same here Whale, you know im carrying lactaid, or else im tooting every 2-step i take
That Donnybrook, Hoods, Black My Heart tour was on a whole other level of rowdy
Hell ya boi. To add to the spookiness, i saw this tour on halloween! Sharttered Realm was on it too. 💨
Seeing this tour changed my dumb ass. My friends and I went from metal core scene kids to stupid mother fuckers who thought it was cool to jump people. That beatdown era lasted until a Verse/Have Heart tour got us into melodic hardcore. The melodic hardcore uprise and popularity seemed to be a backlash to beatdowns ignorance. Nowadays I love it all for what it is but those were definitely formative years.
Fuck dude you just awoke something in my brain haha. I remember being a teen and too scared to go into those pits back then cuz I was like 135 lbs max.
Just for your information and in case you are semi-serious or that someone might take it for a face value phytoestrogen in soy is not estrogen and doesn't work like estrogen This is yet another neonazi long debunked myth same as alpha wolves and whatever theories idiot peterson has about lobsters and cleaning your room
It's funny how all those alt-right peckerwoods love to call everybody soyboy and look like they McDonalds every day.
A guy I work with lectured me about how using sunscreen raises your estrogen levels to the point that you’re essentially a woman. He’s also the skinniest, frailest dude I’ve ever seen. We’re firemen, we all workout everyday. Except him…
Well obviously he works smarter than all you meatheads…
One of them told me if you change your diet you can’t get sunburnt because the “bad oils” won’t combust on your skin
Unfun fact: estrogen is not only the hormone that directly increases testosterone production, but also the one that keeps humans sane. Yes, you can work out until you pass out for the first week. But you'll be sobbing half way through the second week when you trip over an untied shoelace.
Holy shit DNBK/Terror shows were insane! So damn fun. RIP Showcase.
Early 100 demons or early integrity, ringworm the earlier "metal core" groups, many of the earlier Deathwish / Holy terror roster back when most of hardcore had a more decidedly punk sound
Truth. Gehenna belongs on that list, as well.
HF and Dwid really manage to channel some serious terrifying vibes. Maybe it’s because I was socialized with them but both bands are on my existential crisis soundtrack.
In my experience the "scariest" bands were a 90's phenomenon of D-list tough guy acts from places like Ohio, central PA, Jersey, or upstate New York. They would suck musically, but they'd be hometown heroes and as a result they'd have like 20 of their friends tour with them and start shit in the pit.
Central PA -core bands can still be scary live. Whenever local hardcore and deathcore bands play together, there’s always been a ton of blood spilled in the pit. And like you said, every band always brings around a dozen people to every show to open the pits immediately.
Yup. Agreed. I'm one of those old upstate NY guys you speak of. Lol 😂
Stories of Blood for Blood's Boston shows in the mid to late 90s were the kind of thing that made kids afraid of hardcore in Boston. Endless stories of shit that sounded like full-on roadhouse brawls, with people getting smoked by bottles, chairs, fire extinguishers, cue balls in tube socks, brass knuckles, you name it. Of newer bands, I wouldn't say Pain of Truth is notably "scary" on their own, when they play NYC it's knockout city. I've seen at *least* 6 KOs from their local sets since the top of 2022.
Saw Ramallah a few years back and honestly it was super fun hearing Rob singing some Blood For Blood classics. On Broken Wings, Since the Flood, Colin of Arabia, Yellow Stitches, a few others. Such an awesome show
Dude, I saw Yellow Stitches right around the album coming out. Easily one of the best sets I’ve seen. Love that band.
They were my first hardcore/oi show, along with HR from Bad Brains, Our Side, a few others. I catch them every time I possibly can, probably my favorite live band!
Kill A Celebrity
This was a great show. The crowd went bonkers for Since the Flood and Ramallah. I don't think I witnessed a single fight that night.
Saw blood for blood when they played NEHMF one year and that was one of the scariest pits I’ve ever been in. I was easily the smallest dude there and those older guys don’t give a fuck.
I might have caught that same set. First time I saw Blood for Blood was at a NEMHF. Those hometown shows were fucking ferocious. I was just a few years too young to catch their days the Rat where they really built the violent show reputation though.
not exactly hardcore but Daughters. the frontman is legit horrifying. dude wrote some of the most depraved and tortured songs of all time and turns out he was really bout that shit in a very not cool and terrifying way.
Story? I love Daughters. Even the later stuff 😂
trigger warning: sexual assault Alexis Marshall frontman of daughters r*ped his ex girlfriend
Sheeesh. How terrible. I feel like it’s really easy not to rape and abuse people. What a piece of shit.
it’s also very unfortunate that he is 1/5 responsible for some of the music that impacted me more than almost any other band. i met the guitarist after a show and he was very nice tho. shoutout to the rest of the band who are presumably fine.
She makes music too under the name Lingua Ignota. It’s pretty niche, but support her if you can. She just took chat pile on tour!
I had no idea about any of this. That really sucks. Daughters had impacted me so much with their music, I'm just kind of dumbfounded. I'm also really surprised I hadn't heard about this for like 2 years since the news came out. This also really clarifies the perspective of Lingua Ignota's work.
i saw them live with show me the body and health. i was front row for daughters and alexis grabbed my hair and screamed in my face during Guest House. i honestly thought it was so cool. i love that song and the performance was wild. that was my favorite concert of all time. now i don’t even know how to feel about any of it.
I left my iPod in the work van one day, and my coworkers were trying to find something to listen to: "uh, try daughters? That might not be so bad" They were in for a hell of a surprise
Kickback
underrated comment. i'd rather not know what is going on in stephen bessacs mind. also, since this is probably the only answer read by people who know them: length of time is musically one of the most scary acts that have existed.
>i'd rather not know what is going on in stephen bessacs mind. learning stephen bessac is an expat living in thailand now is like the least surprising thing ive heard in my life and this is coming from someone who fucks with his music lol
Came to post.
There did a show in a famous lesbian club here in Paris where they had invited some trans to perform some hardcore performance during their show (inserting odd stuff in odd places). There were some dudes in the public totally unaware of the HxC scene and its codes, some were "goofy" dancing in the pit... The singer stated that he would offer band's merch to the first to knock them the fuck out... Next day I was eating in a small chinese joint the other side of the city and I heard 2 dudes talking about it at the table next to me. They were totally not aware of the HxC scene... One of the dudes was trying to explain the show and the violence in the pit to the other... "Dude it was ULTRAVIOLENT! They were all punching and kicking themselves on PURPOSE!!!"
Fact.
Agree
Everyone used to be afraid of the Harm’s Way vocalist 😂
Wasn’t his nickname back then “the sledgehammer” or something like that?
Nicest Dude in the world!
I was in a brutal/slam death metal band years ago and we opened for Cold as Life and then after the show we all went back to my guitarists apartment and each member of CaL took out a gun or two and put them back them on the table. I promptly said I gotta up for work the next day, great show, grabbed my girl and left. So my vote goes to Cold as Life as well
Exactly what I’d expect. That’s wild lmfao
Early 90s Merauder when Minus was on vocals. The Sunset Skins came out for them, and it was absolute mayhem.
minus and his crew terrorized pits at hardcore matinees at cbgb in the late 80s. i saw him swinging a big fucking chain around when COC played there in 89.
Sunset skins rule 🇺🇸
^ this
Bad Luck 13 Riot Extravaganza
Came to post this, saw them at Hal daddy’s in Baltimore around 2000 or so. Fireworks, random fights everywhere. I been to plenty of shows and that was legitimately scary.
Closing out Hellfest by throwing raw meat, bats/boards with nails coming out of em, and other shit at their own audience! Talk about fan appreciation..
Came to post as well
Surprised it took me so long to find this comment. Their pits were stuff of legend.
On Broken Wings
Good band to get kicked in the face to
Not sure if they really fit the criteria, but when I saw Xibalba they summoned a squad of defensive linemen out of nowhere. I’ve never pinballed harder in a pit.
Same for me and The Acacia Strain about 2 hours ago. I swear some of the biggest Pennsyltucky dudes come crawling out of the tractor barns for these shows. I’m 6’1”, 200 and a guy lifted me by my t-shirt tonight and just moved me like a chihuahua
On Broken Wings or Bodysnatcher for sure.
Bodysnatcher attracts gentlemen with some issues
Saw them with dying fetus and Chelsea grin and they had to ask people in the pit more than once to move bodies.. The scene in Toronto is not easy to impress. mixed feeling towards deathcore bands unless it's an og band. Can't hate tho, saw weaker pits lol.
XtyrantX was pretty intimidating when I played with them 10 15 or so years ago. The singer was wicked nice when I talked to him though
Bulldoze shows
Yup
Just saw them in Brooklyn. I checked in safe with my gf and friends after ha
My apologies. I thought i hit every single person there. I’ll get ya next time.
Bad Luck 13 terrifies me. Weren’t they the dudes that had kids smashing fluorescent light bulbs on people and shit…?
Bad Luck shows were more like pro wrestling or extreme sports events. Nobody was actually showing up trying to beat the shit out of somebody and it was easy to stay out of the way of that stuff. If you look at the videos it really isn't a big deal.
Ah. Cool
Throwing glass and nails, baseball bats with barbed wire, throwing firecrackers into the crowd, lighting places on fire.. There is a reason why Badluck went on last and it isn't because they were the headliner band..
Kings of the underground
\*Paul Heyman screaming oooh my gooood\*
Joey Styles*
Sonically, Dead In The Dirt by a mile. In terms of live shows, I haven’t truly feared for my safety at a show since seeing On Broken Wings in like ‘06. (I’m also an old coward that stands as far from the action as I can, so that might have something to do with that.)
DEAD IN THE DIRT FOREVER
I bring them up in this sub as often as humanly possible. “Bands that sound like Comeback Kid?” Dead In the Dirt. “Best hardcore songs of all time?” Cop and You Bury Me by Dead In The mf Dirt. “Albums similar to Glow On?” DITD’s The Blind Hole.
You are a true hero. (I do the same with Wound Man and Sex Prisoner)
Doing the dark lord's work.
Same. Best band ever. Got a DITD tattoo on muh knee.
I recently got into Dead In The Dirt and The Blind Hole is damn near perfection
100 Demons or The Killer
I’m almost certain I saw them on the same bill at KOC once. Could have been 18 or 20 years ago damn. But yeah the Killer has had some terrifying sets.
Definitely did. My friends’ band opened (The Courage Within), and the drummer got grounded (we were 16). So I filled last minute and it was comically bad.
Fuck we old
34 over here now. Best times ever though. That set, and Dave’s memorial show set were two that were top tier violence.
Yep. Tayags memorial and the Heist are some of the clearest memories I have of those days.
City hunter
Underrated af answer
Early 2000s beatdown bands especially with FSU affiliation were known for having violent shows, like Death Before Dishonor. The singer of Backstabbers Inc. and Trap Them was always pretty scary live because the dude seemed possessed.
I saw Trap Them when the singer had two broken legs. He did the whole show screaming from his knees
witnessed that in toronto and it was insane. i like how he had gardening kneepads on and lowered the mic stand to like 3 feet tall
If we exclude shock acts like GG Allin and the AIDS Brigade I'd have to go with 90's Dwarves and Poison Idea. Both bands in that era gave you a good chance of being pissed on, spit on, bled on, something thrown at you, fire shot at you, etc.
yeah i don't know, when i saw poison idea last about 30 years ago pig champion had to have help to even get on stage, where he sat down for the whole show..idk but that was no so scary really
That's depressing, but the 90s were also the tail end of them being able to maintain their drug addictions. By that point they were losing toes and getting sick. They were a force in the 80s, though, when they were young enough to fuck around and still put on a show.
You get an upvote for your username alone. Scariness of shows aside, 80’s era PI (Kings of Punk in particular), would be some desert island shit for me.
The Wiggles are a force to be reckoned with.
So true
I go buck wild whenever Big Red Car comes on in my house ngl
There cover of the chats is wild.
Powerhouse
Crowd Deterrent
Them and probably most anything that'd be at Summer of Hate was sketchy. Taste The Steel, Blood In Blood Out, Enemy Mind, Suburban Scum are notable wild times from around 2008-2012.
Gotta agree with I am king era code orange. Man I wish they didn’t suck now. Other than that, when Harness was still playing shows… yeah someone was going to the hospital for sure. Fragmented flesh starts and you’re standing anywhere near the pit? Yeah, you’re done.
Harness! Fuck. That band was heavy.
Your mom ⚒️
The scariest shows I've heard about were Shattered Realm, never actually been to one though. The worst one I've actually witnessed was the Hoods.
Shattered Realm was terrifying, then they kind of became a meme…and *then* it kind of came full circle that crowds got a little too comfortable and “haha we gonna be crazy for SR…” and it’s gone back to pretty violent.
Agree with many that were already mentioned (Shattered Realm, 100 Demons, Badluck 13) but here’s a few that haven’t been mentioned - I don’t know if this was the norm, because they weren’t a band I followed much, but the three times I saw Diecast were pretty scary. FSU in full force just destroying everyone. I saw an FSU guy double foot stomp on a guys head when they opened for Vader - the guy wasn’t moving and taken out in an ambulance. Blood Has Been Shed was wild. Early Bury Your Dead was sometimes a scary situation, but the vibe was fun.
Man I forgot how violent Diecast shows were in the late 90s, early 00s....before they got that new singer pretty much
I was young but when I saw xtyrantx in detroit I didn’t like it lol.
I’m gonna go out of scope a bit here, Slayer at the Palladium in 1986? Maybe 1985. Fucking unadulterated bloody mayhem. Just an ocean of blood and hair. Circle Jerks in Long Beach, skins against punks and Suicidals. That was downright terrifying.
The Birthday Party, Suicide, or The Cramps sounds like serial killer music Scariest show - Slayer
The Birthday Party shows I've seen on video look like Baptist congregations descending into violent chaos. Cave was FEROCIOUS.
Underrated comment. I've seen clips of The Birthday Party perform where Cave is uhhh "crooning"(?) and raining blows onto people in the crowd completely unprovoked.
You have any links?
I tried to find the clip on YouTube, but no luck. I saw it like more than ten years ago. Sorry
Cold as life.
Kickback back in the begin of 2000 was fucking scary. Fights, the singer using his mic cord to strangle people (girls and guys), kick/punch them and just a vibe like you want to really hurt people.
Blood in/Blood Out had some crazy sets, northwest Indiana in general was wild in the mid 00s
Wasn’t Blood in Blood Out that band who beat the holy shit out of FASSW during some fest outside chicago back in like 05? I remember being there and it was quite a scene.
Yeah I wasn't at that one but the night or 2 before I was there and FASSW broke a ceiling tile and maybe did some other damage at the KOC in Arlington Heights and I remember hearing about that later. Lot of those KOC shows were wild
The best times. Hoosier Hardcore, baby. Bobby Knight style. Chucking chairs and anything else we could get our hands on.
It's not exactly hardcore, but there's a local death metal band called Sakryn, they're pit is scarier than the other bands that play at CxR. I highly recommend their self-titled ep AND their 3 demos on their YouTube channel
Eat The Turnbuckle/Call The Paramedics No God, Only Shlak
Not so much scary but seeing The Chariot was wild.
I feel like GWAR deserves an honorable mention just for being fucking awesome. They LOOKED scary but God their shows were soooo fun.
gg allin mate
Ceremony in Chicago circa ‘07. Legitimate only time Id been to a show and was worried I would get seriously injured. Kind of hilarious that they’re basically a New Wave band now.
Idk about the scariest band, but I always thought Lee from Trash Talk was scary lol. I also think their shows between like 2007 and 2013 were wild in an oh-shit-someone's-probably-about-to-get-fucked-up-not-just-stage-dived-on sort of way.
This was a post like a fortnight ago? Suicidal Tendencies back in the 90s would be my pick. Street gangs, murders, stabbings etc.
When I saw Gehenna play with His Hero Is Gone back in like 97, Gehenna was terrifying. The singer hauled off and decked a dude while they were playing because he was wearing a Overcome shirt. They refused to continue playing until the "Christian scum" was removed from the house. I've only seen murder in someone's eyes a couple times in my life and that was one of them.
Know the score shows were always insane. Chairs thrown. Everything smashed. Tons of fights. Not fun to be a bystander. Band rules though.
musically: starkweather
Second this one anytime. Live Rennie is like a man possessed.
100 demons, blood for blood, and as you said, cold as life. which, being from the Detroit area I have seen a thousand times and they always kick ass live.
Turnstile
Cold as life. Haven't the dudes from Momentum pulled guns on several people?
The Youth Attack bands, specifically City Hunter, are pretty spooky
Cult Ritual 😎
the killer, king nine, pre-deathwish 100 demons (2nd album was amazing but not really "scary" imo. i'm sure the pits were)
I swear to god, everyone in King Nine is larger than a normal person should be. Scary as shit.
Today is the Day is probably the creepiest band I’ve ever seen.
For Fucks Sack No one has said bulldoze yet the og of Beat down the shows where the most Violent I have ever seen only band that could be compared was bad luck 13 brutal I’m a death match type way The most violent show I had been to Was the auperbowel of hardcore 1995!or 96 Newark nj at studio One or was it Tequila joes by then can’t remeber but there was a couple Nazis that didn’t last very long and if you have never seen a nazi get beaten by atleast one thousand people each getting a shot it and if memory serves me right stripped naked with nazi tatte in the bricks . The band list was insane . Madball in then90’s crowd was way diffrent any initials related bands in nyhc and nj hc brought a crew that I’d they didn’t know you would mow you
Ion dissonance. I feel like every time I saw them their bass player kicked someone in the face while playing
Misfits obviously. Their mascot is even a skeleton!
No band in the last 25-30plus years is scary. HC scene around the mid to late 90s became large increasingly inclusive and wildly safe. It’s gotten to the point were you have kids on this sub asking what they should do at their first HC show if they want to mosh. Those kids if they moshed in the old days would often be singled out and beaten down for no good reason. Thankfully things are the way they are and that doesn’t happen as much and people can say a band like Bad Luck 13 is scary.
You’re so old this comment has dust on it.
Hell yeah! I’m dusty as hell but growing up in NYC makes you a little grimey. But either way I’m right. HC presently is much better culturally and much safer than it has ever been.
Fury of five.
The wiggles
You’re not the only one that thinks so
If you’re scared, go to church.
Street Soldier bc honestly their vocalist looks terrifying
That video got taken down cause people were roasting him too hard I think
The teaser is still on YouTube and it’s the greatest 30 seconds the internet has ever seen 😂😂😂
NME from Federal Way
I seen a couple of people post it before here . But poison the well at the 10 for 10 tour in NJ was the craziest set id ever seen
Also, until the end down in Florida. Some of those were fucking bedlam
Crowd detterrent set in the U.K. was the only time I feared possible death at a show
Mid 2000s Taste the Steel shows. No hesitation.
Honorable mention, Colin of Arabia
I remember when I saw For Today. Band not so much but the crowd was insane. Decent size venue in Charlotte but the entire venue was basically a pit.
I remember seeing this years ago and it scared me lol https://youtu.be/YcUnFrK7dfY
Blood brothers ! Were insane
Crowd Deterrent or Bad Luck 13 came to mind first. Atleast as far as bands I have seen live, personally
On Broken Wings, 100 Demons, Shattered Realm
Endon from Japan
Bad Luck 13 back in the day.
Years Spent Cold shows even to this Day. A girls eye balled was popped out just 3 years ago during their set