My problem with HxC is that I'm not very HxC (on purpose)

Five or six years ago my town of High Wycombe was on the gigging circuit for a lot of decent UK Hardcore bands - people like Knuckledust, Underrule, Diction, Special Move, Unite, BDF etc. A handful of people I knew would attend, some locals I didn't know would invariably be around, but mostly the crowd were followers and friends of the bands themselves. Usually they'd have come out from London. I liked the music we saw and heard - I still do. The last couple of decent hardcore shows to roll through Wycombe were the USHC bands Throwdown and Terror, the latter being the White Horse landlord Paul's last gig in charge of the pub. After that the UKHC gigs dried up, aside from a few bands playing at the largely Punk Rock-inclined Pass Out nights.

About two years ago a friend of mine, ex-Owing To This (who had captured a moment very successfully in the scene some years before), started a UKHC band with some younger members. After six months or so, they hit their stride and suddenly I was at one of their shows, standing at the edge of the biggest crowd of Hardcore kids I'd seen outside of London in nearly half a decade. It was far more violent than I remembered and though the music was still as spiteful as it was before, the fans seemed more vicious. This was more ominous than the videos of snarling, spitting, cartoonish Punk Rockers from the '77 First Wave.

Since then I've witnessed the UKHC scene accelerate through Wycombe again, riling up its youngsters as it passes by. I was never a die-hard follower, but I've lost something of the connection I once had with it. I find it hard to become enraged, indignant and territorial on cue. In fact, in the years since I left school I've tried to actively avoid those mindsets. The genre still appeals to me because I like angry, fast, and heavy, but I've never felt right standing on stage screaming at The Enemy without also screaming at Myself in the same breath for the sake of fair balance. These kids are making good music and they mean it, but they appear to me as a pack of wolves sometimes, and I doubt that individually they are as headstrong and righteous as their group catharsis would suggest.

Some of it is shamelessly Tough Guy and irksomely Preachy, too. Maybe that's a simpler reason why I'm not so moved by it all any more - I am not a Tough Guy, or a Preacher. I'm as wrong as I am right, ultimately, as is everyone.