When the whisperings of Hellfest started cropping up in the server, I honestly didn’t give it much thought at first. As much as I like hardcore, I have a very weird relationship with it compared to most. I didn’t get into hardcore because of the music, but instead I was interested in the history, so in that aspect I’m different than 99% of the hardcore populace. I felt that I might not exactly fit in with the crowd at a festival like Hellfest; sure, I can spout out facts upon historical facts upon any willing witness, but ask me to two-step, and I’ll fall on my ass before you can blink.
However, the more people committing to spending their 4th of July in a mosh pit, the more I was inspired to try. The real push came when our buddy, a good friend of Pete’s during his hardcore days, confirmed he was also planning to come. He doesn’t really want to be known publicly, so for the purposes of this blog, we’re all referring to him as “Weapon” going forward.
Anyways, befriending Weapon has been an exercise in unfamiliar experiences for me. I didn’t think most 20-year-olds have 50-year-old friends that aren’t their parents’ friends, but trust me when I say that is just a classic Hardcore Experience™. I think there’s something deeply special about non-conventional relationships only possible through the Internet. In no other scenario would I have become close buddies with this guy who has a kid almost my age, played Minecraft with him, and learned all that I’ve learned from him. The Internet was an important facet in fostering that, but so was hardcore as a community. These opportunities for unique experiences are something I take time to be grateful for pretty frequently.
So, it was set into motion. I, along with a crew of admins, mods, and friends, would traverse our way up to Rutherford, New Jersey, for my very first hardcore festival. I couldn’t have imagined this a year ago; I was completely isolated, drowning in endless schoolwork, lonely nights, dependent on my parents, and a lack of any focus or clear goal for my life. In fact, this is such a departure that my parents were actually worried about my safety. That’s something else I can thank hardcore for, I suppose, being pushing me out of my comfort zone and into a better life.
Honestly, when it came to planning, I was willing to let my friends take the reins. I just wanted an experience, nothing specific. Besides, I was chugging along with our Chicago trip planning, which was a whole other experience in itself. So the date of Hellfest approached closer and closer, until it was just a week away, before I realized I had very little idea of what the plan was at all.
I scrambled to intake all of the information surrounding the plans my friends made, and before I knew it, Lizzie and I were leaving my house in Pittsburgh. From there, we met the rest of the crew in Philly, where Lizzie lives. We spent some time in Philly doing Philly things before all seven of us piled into the clown car towards Rutherford, NJ. When we first walked in past security and could hear the music blasting from the theater, it finally hit that this was really happening. So much planning went into making this work, and the effort was about to pay off.
The events of the first day, up until near the end, are mostly a blur of going back and forth between the various rooms and exploring, interspersed between notable activities. After we entered, Oli and Sera immediately entered the pit to go apeshit. I floated around some of the merch stands and observed before entering and finding Kay. I think the band I saw for a bit with her was Godskin Peeler. They were alright, but we moved on quickly, and I checked out the downstairs. As cool as seeing the bands and merch was, one of my favorite parts of the whole trip was people-watching. I live in a hick suburb, so getting to see the diversity and expression in everyone there was such a treat for my eyes.
A group of us met AJ at the Preserving Records tent out back by the entrance. I tried to get Oli to rant about Milwaukee hardcore with him, but I think he was too in awe of everything at the fest and forgot. AJ’s another hardcore dude we’re all friendly with, and he’s a great dude. I started going to Preserving Records last year, after finding out about it from our research. It’s about an hour away from where I currently live, but I make trips more frequently than my wallet likes. I got the pleasure of getting to see AJ mosh a little bit during the second day of the festival, but I won’t get ahead of myself. The other tents surrounding his were cool, too. xSisterhoodx were super generous in their freebies, and gave us some Posca X’s. Moving Mountains is a straightedge group doing harm reduction and helping addicts, which is so needed in hardcore spaces. Plus, their shirt designs fuckin’ rock.
At some point, I went to the merch table when Skycamefalling was there. They were probably the band I was most excited to see, other than I Promised The World. Their merch was cool, but I was trying to keep my spending down. I noticed some pins with their EP cover on it, which I must have been staring at, because the vocalist locked eyes with me, gave me sort of a pitiful look, and just sighed, “Go ahead, take one.” Maybe it’s because I look like I’m 12. Regardless, I’m thankful, cause I ended up losing a sizeable amount of my buttons throughout the fest. I’m also thankful we finally got to see the Oli and Josh meetup. Oli obviously already explained the events that led to this, but he left out the fact that I really, desperately wanted to see this build up to a thumb wrestling match. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but it was still cool and fascinating to see. How weird and wonderful it is, that this random 20-year-old and a local hardcore legend, Josh, had a joking fight on Twitter that culminated in a real-life meetup. The fact that everything in the universe lined up to make that happen is so special to me.
Meeting Weapon was definitely the highlight of the entire trip. Kay was the first to let me know that he had arrived while I happened to be downstairs. Lizzie and I rushed upstairs to grab my supplies: a black ski mask and an orange gift bag. Weapon was a huge influence on Pete Wentz, but also the hardcore scene as a whole. He taught Pete how to mosh, apparently. Something else he did was influence the scene with his clothing brand, Cabal, which is forever tied to Syracuse hardcore. I saw plenty of Cabal-branded jerseys in the pit, in my local hardcore record store, and of course, on Pete at FOB shows.
Something else he helped spread throughout the scene was wearing different varieties of masks and bandanas. Hey, even Pete got in on it! So of course, I had to show up in a ski mask of my own to show him whose boss. Kay said he was at the merch table, so I slipped the mask on and marched my way over. It was perfect timing, because he was looking downward at his phone. I slammed my hands on the table, his head popping up, and yelled, “WHAT’S UP FUCKER?” It was perfect, like a movie. You don’t get many moments like that in life. I try to savor them. Weapon was happy to meet us all and gave us big hugs. He liked all his gifts a lot, too.
Alright, enough beating around the bush, let’s get into the catastrophe. Some time in the second half of the first day, when Missing Link ended their set, and On Broken Wings began setting up, all hell broke loose, fitting, considering it was Hellfest. I, along with everyone but Lizzie and Oli, had made our way out of the pit to relax. When the bands switched, Oli was seemingly pummeled by someone, passed out, and was taken away in an ambulance. Lizzie didn’t even see any of this happen; she only heard about it over the intercom and started freaking out in our group chat. She continued to search for him, while I and a few others ran to the EMTs to ask questions. The EMT I approached looked worried, and the number of injured people around him definitely contributed to it. There was one girl with a broken leg, a beet-red guy, sweating in a chair with blood pouring down his face, all while the crowd of attendees and EMTs swarmed.
When I asked him about Oliver, he leaned close and put his hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, your buddy got hit in the head. He passed out immediately, so we sent him in an ambulance,” he continued, telling us what hospital to go to and what we would need to say.
As much as I can look back at this and giggle about it, it was genuinely terrifying in the moment. This trip was my first time truly feeling the freedoms of being an adult. This was my chance to prove myself capable of actually being a competent adult, and the way I went about that was by taking care of the group. Throughout the trip, I made sure everyone was hydrated, fed, and generally taking care of themselves. In this moment, I felt like I slipped up big time, and now one of my best friends was in the hospital, possibly seriously injured. I didn’t let myself panic, but instead directed the “OH FUCK” energy to actually being productive. Sera, Kay, and I rushed out of the venue, over to the Preserving Records tent. Kay called Weapon, Sera looked up the hospital name, and I texted the group chat the news, and to meet us at the tent. It was tense, trying to figure out what to do. Sera was by far the most upset; she and Oli have been friends the longest. Weapon ended up driving Sera to the hospital, while our friend’s mom picked the rest of us up to rest for the night. Within that time, we did learn that he was not in any seriously critical condition, but would be in the hospital overnight.
In the end, he had a brain bleed and a stroke. His brain bounced against his skull. We still don’t know who exactly hit him, nor how he was hit, but whatever it was, it was a move powerful enough to do that. I still have the gut feeling that it had to have been some buff dude like 3x his size being completely reckless in the pit. Yeah, you’re gonna get injured in the pit, sure, maybe even break a bone. But in 2025, there’s no reason anyone needs to get a fuckin’ brain bleed.
That night, we went to bed, pits in our stomachs out of concern for our friend. Someone outside of our group pointed out to me that we could have gone back to the festival still, to which I just laughed. I wouldn’t even think to do that when we were so worried.
The following morning, we got good news. Oli was in stable condition and doing well, and could even be discharged that day! Weapon was hanging out with him at the hospital… Apparently, he slept in his car the night before. So, we ended up attending the Hardcore Hangout in a nearby park. That was tons of fun, even if Oli was still on my mind. We were entered into a hardcore raffle, where we collectively got tons of free CDs and vinyl. I also got to talk extensively with Josh about all things FOBAT and archiving, which proved super useful in answering a couple of questions I had. We had a blast playing games and drinking root beer, but eventually, it was time to go meet Oliver at the hospital.
Sera, Lizzie, and I went to check in on Oli at the hospital nearby while Weapon was getting him discharged. I wasn’t expecting him to be so jovial when we entered; it was like nothing had happened at all. I felt a lot of relief then. Kay Facetimed, so we all chatted and caught each other up on anything important. Eventually, Oli got discharged, and we got out of the hospital. When he walked outside, the sun hurt his eyes, and that was the first indication of some lasting damage. Even though I’m still shocked at how fast he’s recovered, I don’t think he disagrees with me when I say he was a little… stupid, for a minute there at least. We went back to the fest and essentially became his chaperones. He wandered around aimlessly a lot, sunglasses and headphones on, hood up, mumbling about his head hurting. He’d go from doing really well to not, back and forth pretty frequently. I don’t think any of us were upset about having to become “babysitters” for the rest of the trip. I was more concerned with making sure he was doing okay.
Josh, the GOAT, let Oli and Sera go onto the VIP balcony to watch the show from a safe distance. I did threaten him that I would Oli to a chair otherwise, though. All in all, the second day was far better than I was expecting it to be after such an experience. Some other fun things I did and saw included eating really good blackberry ice cream, watching one of the bands play Tech-Deck on an unused merch table, and seeing I Promised The World. They were great; by far the favorite band that I saw. I have a weird relationship with hardcore: as much as I love it, I’m more interested in hardcore history than I am the music itself. There aren’t a lot of bands that are sonically my favorites. I Promised The World is an exception to that.
The rest of the day was a back and forth between seeing bands, buying merch, and eating.
Finally, at the end, we saw Eighteen Visions. They’re not my absolute favorite, but James is super nice and puts on a great show. I got to stand next to Weapon in the pit… I was itching for him to break out moshing. Apparently, he’s too old to be doing windmills anymore. Whatever!
After the show, we met up outside, saying our goodbyes to Weapon. I appreciate him so much. He didn’t have to come to this festival for us, but he did. He didn’t have to drive Sera to the hospital, but he did. He put in a lot of effort to make sure we were as safe as possible. We’re all adults, sure, but this was a situation beyond us, and I’m so grateful that someone was there to step in and help. After some final sweaty hugs, we headed back to our respective beds for the night, marking an end to Hellfest 2025.
The day after, we drove to New York to meet up with our friend Muttley. We hung out at a local park by the Hudson River, squirting each other with water guns and eating picnic foods. Muttley was lovely to meet in person, and it was an almost eerily calm ending to the biggest rollercoaster of a trip. In a personal way, this trip meant a lot to me and taught me more than I was expecting. Despite the intense stress, I wouldn’t go back and change my decision to go to the festival. I got to test my skills in managing things on my own, something I don’t always get to do as someone who grew up disabled. I learned that I love to do this; do things on my own and lead a group. And I had even more of that to look forward to later in the month!