I've heard a few stories about gangs sometimes showing up at shows and causing shit with other gang members or just innocent people. I never saw any footage of it, until I stumbled upon a video of Demolition live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... R2w#t=151s

At first I thought it was a regular wall of death, but then I see that there is an unusual amount of thugs, and fists are being thrown. Then all the cholos take their shit outside and half the crowd actually leaves, and the vocalist makes a remark at the end about that shit.

Are there any other concerts/stories about gangs being involved in metal shows? I've barely started getting into the HC scene with stuff like Biohazard, Killing Time, Madball, and Trapped Under Ice, and they actually appear thug-ish in either their appearance, or in the audience where many people appear in bandanas, tattoos, shaved heads and baggy clothes. Is it because of the surrounding neighborhoods, is it because people like to start shit at shows, or any other reasons? This has become very interesting to me. I've heard about a gang stomping a kid to death at a show, but is all this a problem of the past now or does it still persist?

I heard that some guys from the Aryan Brotherhood attend to some concerts just to beat crap out of the kids in the audience

Excruciating terror would generally have a bunch of cholo's at shows and they all looked like it. I'm sure it also crossed over to other grindcore bands and I'm sure there was gang fights as well.

Also you have to consider Biohazard, Sick of it All, Trapped Under Ice and all those bands are from the 90's where oversized shirts and JNCO jeans were very prominent.

It's not just the clothing, I've heard stories about those NYC bands in the '90s, definitely gang stuff.

But I guess the original post is about California.

There are a lot of "crews" in the hardcore scene, but I wouldn't go as far as to call them gangs. It's just the mentality of it all, there's some similarity to metal as a huge part is about brotherhood and sticking up for your family and friends. As for an exact reason why it's like that, I have no idea. Some people go to shows with their "crew" to hurt other people intentionally and start fights, others go to shows for the sense of community.

As for this stuff happening at metal shows, the only time I've seen "segregation" is when people intentionally try to hurt hardcore dancers in the pit even when there is no one else in there. Also, at shows in Hartford there's always one or two guys that look completely out of place for a metal show that just come to mosh, but that's somewhat unrelated.

Shitty style of music? Shitty crowd.

Actual explaination. "/thread"

Never encountered it at a show in NYC or anywhere in the surrounding area - towards the end of the 90s, management of respectable venues wised up and actively work against it, refusing entry to people obviously wearing gang colors/logos (i.e. FSU in the northeast). Haven't seen aggressive crews at NYHC shows in years. I still hear about problems with crews at DIY venues who don't manage security, pretty much exclusively for underground hardcore tours that tend to not hit a lot of professional venues.

I suppose southern California in particular was notorious for that shit, but where I live now I really haven't seen it. Maybe the occasional nazi type shows up for a gig now and again but even these guys typically stick to their own scene (Hammerfest was held out here a couple months ago, for instance; I obviously wasnt there.) I DO remember that Suicidal Tendancies were infamous for that gang crap back in the day. There were even a couple gangs in Northern California who used that band as an identity to revlove around, dressed in blue "crips" rags with Suicidal t-shirts and called themselves "Suicidal Crips" and what not. S.T shows were sort of famous for rival gangs beating the crap out of each other in the pit, I recall.

I also remember tales of "Straight Edge Youth Crews" going around starting fights with ramdom people who had drinks and cigarettes in thier hands, but I don't think that is as prevalent any more, and it was mostly confined to the punk scene anyway.

i heard this happened a lot way back but it doesnt seem to happpen at all anymore

You get a few skinheads at local death metal shows here at times but I'd hardly call them gangs as they are quite lanky looking guys.

The ones I hate are the gangster looking, macho bullshit guys who while not in gangs, come to shows in those flat billed caps with pentagrams embroided on them to fight just because there's a mosh pit.

One of these douches actually hit my girlfriend in the face because she was front row at a Macabre show and before I could get to him, half of the audience got to him and I never saw him again and the security there actually threw out everyone that was in the mosh pit because of it, would have been a good 200 people too.
Would have looked strange having so little people left there in that venue because it was quite large.

This isn't current by any means, and I haven't really looked for any corroborations with this story, but it might be of interest to anyone who hasn't read it.

http://kevinestrada.wordpress.com/2008/ ... nger-tour/

I live in Palmdale, CA which is only a stone's throw from the Los Angeles area, and I can say that I have not once encountered any kind of gang violence at any metal show that I've attended. At any of the shows I've been to people are just there to have good time, and not to start any problems. Though on occasion when I attend a concert in Anaheim rather than LA/Hollywood you get the tough guy "bro" types from Riverside and the rest of the Inland Empire who want to compare pecs and biceps in the pit. Which is why I tend to stick to Los Angeles shows.

Overall, Los Angeles gangs are not nearly as big a problem as they were in the 80's and early 90's when violent crime and homicide rates were much higher. This site contains data from the California Dept of Justice, and one can see that crime in LA has been stedily declining for nearly 20 years.

http://www.laalmanac.com/crime/cr02.htm

who are the band in the video in the first post, demolition?

Was at a Cro-Mags show the day before New Years Eve and there was nothing like that. It was just all Punks, Hardcore Kids and Metalheads getting along stage diving and moshing.

shit, that sounds nuts.
i remember seeing a couple of skinheads in the crowd when i saw D666 about 10 years ago, but that's it. otherwise, never seen any gang-related stuff at a metal show. i always assumed that sort of stuff was more confined to hip hop/rap.

the AB are an elite multi-million dollar making prison gang who have an alliance with La eMe ... I highly doubt theyre getting out of prison to beat on some random metal heads LOL!

That sounds fucking insane. I would have expected this in a Suicidal Tendencies show, but the Grindcrusher Tour? Fuck.


Yeah. Saw them live, band was around for a while before they reunited last year, I think. Awesome band, they have 3 guitarists. Dug them up and I found that video.

I guess California was a fucked up place back then, but I expected more stories from the East-side for some reason. Oh well.

I have never had ANY problem in Europe, sorry.

Cleveland had literally one skinhead, but he was fucking huge so no one really messed with him. He also didn't really cause trouble, he just wore stuff that said like "Watain is Skin!" or "White Pride" on his vest.


DC has lots of AntiFA kids, both skins and regular vegan/long-haired punks, who tend to hang around and prevent fights for the most part. But, it's a crazy chill scene, never really encountered much else.

cool, thanks! they sound good to me, although they probably could have stopped playing for a minute or two to get those idiots out of the club