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Prisão photo by Piotr from Traume. If you’re trying to eavesdrop on K-Town, his Instagram (@xmoroccox) is the one to watch.
In my last staff pick I promised to write about this year’s K-Town Hardcore fest. Now that I’m home and the fest is a week and a half in the past, a minute-by-minute rundown feels superfluous, but I’ll try to hit the highlights. Before I get into the nitty gritty, I’ll give you my standard spiel about K-Town. All due respect to those of you who take on the monumental and thankless task of putting on a fest, but K-Town is my favorite fest in the world. First (and most importantly for me), they always book the sickest bands, and I can’t think of another current fest whose lineup fits so snugly with my personal taste. Second, I love everything about how the fest is run. K-Town is conceived and executed entirely by volunteers, and they are a truly radical organization that puts anarchist ideas and philosophies into practice without ignoring the realities of the world we live in. There are no sponsorships or other corporate BS, but the bands still get paid (and a bunch of money gets donated to important charitable causes) and there’s plenty of the stuff we all love like records and merch and booze. Everything runs like clockwork, and the organizers seem to have thought of everything in advance. The result is a great vibe for the entire weekend. I always say that K-Town is the best place to see a band. Between the great sound and the always-enthusiastic crowd, you’re all but guaranteed to be watching bands at their very best.
While a lot of people come to K-Town for the hangs and only watch a handful of sets, I’m a punk nerd at heart and usually try to watch as many bands as I can. In the past I’ve watched nearly every band, but this year I tried not to put too much pressure on myself to catch every single set. Watching so many bands is physically grueling, and there were lots of friends I wanted to catch up with, which is impossible to do when you’re crammed in a sweatbox with hundreds of other people while a hardcore band rages at maximum intensity and volume. So, sadly, I missed a lot of bands I would have liked to see, particularly during the day shows and earlier in the day on the main shows. I really wish I could tell you about seeing Status Symbol, White Collar, Phosphore, Surrogates, and the Social, but sadly I missed all these sets.
Friday was K-Town’s first and longest day, with Bootlicker kicking off the final set of the night at 1:45 AM, by which time I was hobbling around like the old man I am. They still ripped, though… the crowd went nuts and I was stoked to see them for the first time after missing their set at Skull Fest a few years ago. They also played three covers, which seems excessive on paper, but kept the rage-o-meter in the red. The Berserk was an early highlight. Even though they’re from Philadelphia, this was my first time seeing them, and despite the early hour they brought an unhinged energy and danger that stood out among the more polished bands that dominated this year’s bill. Strong Boys were another Friday highlight. I’ve liked their records, but their chunky, straightforward hardcore (which reminded me a lot of 86 Mentality) made the crowd go wild, and the band’s queer presentation undercut the macho vibes that can turn me off of tough-sounding hardcore. Prisão was my favorite band of the first day, though. I’d seen them play in Stockholm last year, but they were on fire at K-Town, their set a blur of bodies (primarily the singer Lucas’s) flying through the air. Every so often, I’m watching a band and realize they’re at the height of their powers, that they’re achieving a state of transcendence that is always fleeting, so you have to savor it whenever you encounter it. That’s how I felt watching Prisão’s set, and there’s no feeling like it in the world. Oh, and watch for their new 7” coming soon on Sorry State :)
Feeling physically wrecked from Friday’s marathon, I missed the matinee show and the first chunk of the main show on Saturday. After hearing so many Canadian friends talk about Siyahkal I made sure to catch their set, though, and it was heavy, intense, and memorable. After them was one of my must-sees for the fest, Sorry State’s own Psico Galera. They played a scorching set comprised (almost?) entirely of songs from their recently-released LP on Sorry State, and while I got the impression their strange and complex brand of hardcore went over some people’s heads, I thought they killed it. Every year I’ve gone to K-Town a couple of Sorry State bands have played, and when I watch them I always get this giddy feeling because we put out the best bands. Saturday ended with a mighty one-two punch with blazing sets from Hacker and Skitkids. I liked Hacker’s records, but they didn’t prepare me for how ferocious they were live, their singer a kinetic ball of venomous rage ping-ponging across the stage for the entire sweat-soaked set. And then Skitkids closed Saturday with a positively triumphant set. This was their first show in many years, and while I can be wary of reunion bands, I can’t imagine a single person walked away from Skitkids’ set disappointed. They were on fire, opening (and closing!) with their classic intro and blazing through a set that didn’t let up for a second. The band was super well-rehearsed, playing their dense and complex music with incredible precision and power while commanding the crowd like the veterans they are. My clothes were completely saturated with sweat by the time it was over, but it was the most fun I’ve had watching a band in some time.
Sunday is always a little more chill at K-town, since everyone is a bit tired by this point and the crowd thins out as people start making their way back home for work on Monday. However, for my money Sunday had the most jam-packed lineup of the fest’s three days. Sunday kicked off with a can’t miss block of four bands: Traumatizer, Indikator B, Tiikeri, and Ayucaba. Traumatizer was killer, one of those bands that’s just stupidly good at their instruments, and watching them I was amazed that a band this killer was playing first, but that’s a testament to how stacked today’s lineup was. Next up was Croatia’s Indikator B, and even though I saw them play in Raleigh just a few weeks ago, I was pumped to see them again. I haven’t stopped listening to their recent 7” since it came out, and their set was blistering. There are very few bands out there who sound as classic as Indikator B, and I noticed many of the big 80s hardcore nerds in attendance made it a point to watch their. After Indikator B was Tiikeri, and while their melodic sound was an outlier on the fest’s lineup, the band members are familiar faces from the hardcore scene and they play with the energy and intensity of a hardcore band. It’s funny, though, when I looked around me, the front of the stage was crowded with folks from the US, Canada, and the UK… is there something about Tiikeri that appeals particularly to the anglophone world? I couldn’t tell you… I just know I love ‘em. After that was Ayucaba, and there was a buzz in the air as people packed in the room while they set up; you could tell they were on a lot of people’s must-see lists. Their LP was one of my most listened-to records of last year, but they were a different beast live. They played super tight, but the live mix emphasized the bulldozing rhythm section over the hooky guitar leads that sat at the front of the LP’s mix. Also, their style was impeccable, which certainly added to the experience. And they ended their set with a scorching English Dogs cover from To the Ends of the Earth, one of my favorite records ever. Sadly, I missed the next couple of bands, but I made it back in for a wild closing set from hometown favorites JJ and the A’s. They handed out mojitos to the crowd, filled the room with inflatable pool toys, and brought out a big-ass cake, making for a wild party atmosphere. I hear they capped off their set with an Inepsy cover that made the punks go wild, but stupid me skipped out a few minutes early to beat the rush for fresh air.
So yeah, another K-Town in the books. Thank you so much to all the bands, friends, volunteers, and everyone else who made it such a great weekend. Hopefully I’ll see you all next year.