5 Latine Hardcore Shows With the Scariest Mosh Pits Imaginable
Credit: Instagram @martincrudo
It’s spooky season, and for many people that means indulging in horror movies to set the mood. But if one genre starts to dull the scaries, where else can you find that same feeling in a different context?
Enter mosh pits. Dancing passionately to music is one of the most rewarding, joyful acts almost anyone can enjoy, yet only the bravest dare to try this kind of concert behavior. Moshing can be a communal, cathartic experience tied to many types of music, but one genre can make its pits especially intense.
Hardcore—the genre that distills punk, metal, and other styles into a no-frills, distorted sound—treats slam dancing and moshing as bona fide sports, and crowds can get so rowdy it seems the whole venue might collapse under the movement and excitement.
Some of the most exciting and revered bands in hardcore have Latine members and identities, so this is a perfect opportunity to sit back and watch some of the most physically intense shows, captured on video and preserved on YouTube, to enjoy safely from home.
We dare you not to look away.
Agnostic Front
Perhaps the band that set the standard for modern hardcore, Agnostic Front has boasted a slew of Latine members, most notably Cuban vocalist Roger Miret. This early-’90s set opens with a proclamation against racism—witnesses say white supremacists were confronted and run off before AF took the stage—and from there it delivers some of the most raging footage of a band and an audience joining forces in the name of hard-edged music.
Madball
Vocalist Freddy “Madball” Cricien got his start in hardcore at a young age, when his half-brother Roger Miret pulled him onstage to sing a song or two with Agnostic Front. After founding his own band, Madball became one of the genre’s most beloved and influential acts. This mid-’90s New York show captures what a no-holds-barred hardcore show felt like back then: the lines between audience and band blur, and Agnostic Front even steps in mid-set for a special two-song intervention.
Los Crudos
A historic document: Chicago’s Los Crudos is one of the most important Latine punk bands, singing mostly in Spanish and taking on race, colonialism, sexuality, women’s rights, and other causes. This video captures their stop in Querétaro on their tour of México, a commendable endeavor they undertook completely independently. The show is unique because a crowd of mohawked concertgoers goes wild. At the same time, small children sit around the stage, showing how slam dancing—which can seem about to spiral out of control at any minute—can also be part of a wholesome communal spirit.
Merauder
Another New York band, Merauder was formed by members of the Puerto Rican skinhead crew Sunset Skins from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, who decried and fought white supremacists both at shows and on the streets. The band’s unique sound blended some of the hardest beats with metal’s heft, inspiring crowds to go completely berserk. This mid-’90s show captures a typical Merauder set, enough, by most standards, to stop everything until everyone started behaving.
Raw Brigade
Hailing from Bogotá, Colombia, Raw Brigade is the newest band on the list and one of the most inspiring in current hardcore. The band plays no-nonsense HxCx the way it was meant to be played, with poignant lyrics about life as Latines in these trying times. This 2021 set is a perfect example of how hardcore can be experienced: no stage, a crowd giving as much energy as the band, and people piling on top of each other to sing along. It proves that hardcore shows can still go as hard as in the unruly early days.