![]() ![]() Scowl have been touring hard lately, and their live show has a chaotic theatricality that I just love. Scowl’s version of hardcore is faster and more punk than most, but their breakdowns still hit with sledgehammer force. The band’s set couldn’t have been much longer than 15 minutes. Kat Moss made it clear that she wanted everyone to fucking move, and everyone fucking moved. In Richmond, the band band played with all the bugged-out intensity that I want from a basement band. It’s by far the most polished song that Scowl have ever released, and I think it’s also the best. Last week, a couple of days before the Richmond show, Scowl announced their upcoming EP and dropped the new single “ Opening Night.” “Opening Night” is a fast, hooky alt-rock rager that reminds me of L7. Just don’t let anyone kick you in the chest too hard. If the Richmond show was any indication, you should do your best to make it to one of those shows. The Richmond show was the second date on that tour, and it sold out all the way out in advance. A few months ago, around the time their album Trouble The Water came out, Show Me The Body announced a huge two-month North American tour with three of the most vital and exciting bands on the hardcore landscape - Jesus Piece, Scowl, and Zulu - along with the SoundCloud rapper TrippJones. The last time I saw the New York trio, they rolled through a Richmond DIY space with Candy and Regional Justice Center. And Show Me The Body put on for hardcore. Show Me The Body are really only a hardcore band by association, but they’re a true phenomenon, a cult band that gets wild reactions wherever they play. Things didn’t really calm down after that. And this whole thing - the kick and its aftermath - happened during the third act of a five-act bill. It was less of a moshpit injury, more of an ending to an MMA fight. Before Friday night, though, I don’t think I’d ever seen someone get crowdkilled like that. I’ve seen a lot of crowdkilling at a lot of shows. I don’t know what happened to the guy after that. Then his friends scooped him up and took him out of the venue. For a few minutes, he was leaning against a wall, doubled over, looking like he was about to barf on the floor. The guy’s friends helped him back up, but he was not OK. Instead, his body just kind of trembled for a minute, and then he crumpled to the ground in slow-motion, curling into a fetal ball on the floor. The guy who’d been kicked didn’t fly backwards. But I did see the one guy kick the other guy in the chest hard enough that his soul visibly entered the Shadow Realm. People were flying in different directions, and I was looking after myself, so I don’t know if this one guy specifically targeted this other guy. If you get hit, it might hurt, but it won’t end you. ![]() Usually, anyone crowdkilling is just aimlessly flailing around. ![]() You might not want a stranger to elbow you in the jaw, but you do want to be at a wild-ass show, and an elbow to the jaw might just be the price of admission. In reality, though, crowdkilling is just a thing that happens. People love to argue online about the ethics of crowdkilling - the practice of throwing haymakers at the people who are adjacent to the pit but not in it. A kick like that is not an uncommon thing. Someone in the pit threw a very hard kick at whoever happened to be standing on the pit’s edge. A few songs into Scowl’s set in Richmond on Friday, during the breakdown of I forget which song, the spirit left the body of the guy standing a few feet away from me. ![]()
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