[live recap + video] Off With Their Heads @ Great Scott

This past Wednesday at the OFF WITH THEIR HEADS/DEAD TO ME/THE HOLY MESS/FAKE BOYS show, I was reminded why some punks are there to celebrate solidarity and positive cultural change, and some are only there to get belligerent and hurt people.

First of all, if you were there on Wednesday, you probably are still holding a hand to your ear and asking people to repeat themselves, because this show was LOUD. Unfortunately, the loudness of the punk show was missing its better half: the moshing. The crowd was calm and subdued until headliners OWTH came on, which incited a massive push pit involving members of both sexes and all genders. The common theme of in-between banter among bands consisted of speaking positively about life despite its hardships, which was met by raucous applause and heartfelt smiles. But when push comes to shove (har har), things got a little heated as the show got rowdy.

Everyone goes to punk shows for different reasons. Punk music and ethics have always been divided by nature, but the inherently violent reaction to punk music, as well as the overarching theme of rage and aggression, can sometimes blur the lines between what punks consider moral.

Basically what I’m saying is punks fight each other for the same reasons that macho dudes who go to bars fight each other. It all happened kinda like this:

-everyone is moshing
-some dude does some sort of weird backwards somersault onto the crowd
-somersault dude knocks over some other dude
-dude that got knocked over gets angry and starts shoving somersault guy
-angry dude’s girlfriend tries to hold him back -angry dude floors his girlfriend
-Great Scott’s wonderful security guards took care of things after that

If these guys are going to these shows to see bands like OWTH, who have a very strong stance against misogynistic violence, it’s a conundrum to see that some punks still hit their girlfriends. I’m standing by my opinion that the anger fueled by punk music is being sucked up by its listeners and not channeled anywhere useful, so it builds up and gets spewed out at the wrong time to the wrong people. For now, I suppose we can just wait until the punks get organized enough to revolt against capitalism.