At the climax of the Show Me the Body show on June 7 at Night Club 101, frontman Julian Cashwan Pratt ripped his sweaty t-shirt off and whipped the crowd into an even deeper frenzy. He’d stage-dived a few times over the course of the night, and now the moshers up front took turns leaping onto the stage and arcing through the air like dolphins. The crowd rippled with feeling. There was rage, and there was also joy.
These seemingly opposite emotions go together surprisingly well, just as they do at protests, where the collective release of anger can produce feelings of ecstatic togetherness. And Show Me the Body is a band that thrives within contradictions like this one. The hardcore trio, which formed in New York City nearly two decades ago, makes music about wanting to be alone while rallying “freaks” together around the globe; calls for violence while lambasting police brutality; bemoans change while pushing for progress and evolving their sound. At Night Club 101, performing their first live show in a while, the band was as caustic and as incisive as ever.
The night began with nascent punk band Decept, whose singer screamed and gasped about “bleed[ing] the world dry” while urging the audience to vote for NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in between songs. Later, a DJ put on a dance-pop set, which was excellent, albeit kind of a funny choice alongside the heavy live music. At some point, they spun Addison Rae; the moshers politely head-banged along. “Where’s Your Head At” by Basement Jaxx garnered a more energetic reception.
The crowd went feral over the main event. Show Me the Body had announced in advance that they were trying out new stuff, but they threw in plenty of old favorites, too. The fans — cargo pants-wearing, heavily tattooed, and largely millennial — were able to shout along at the top of their lungs to classics like “Food From Plate,” “K-9,” and “Loose Talk.” Cashwan Pratt jangled riffs on his electric banjo; bassist Harlan Steed and drummer Jack McDermott provided driving, pulsating rhythm as the rip-roaring fans bounced off each other in time.
If you’ve never been to a hardcore show, you might have some trouble imagining what the crowd is like. Perhaps you’re picturing unmitigated chaos, a totally lawless frontier where everybody’s trying their level best to give you specifically a black eye. Let me clear things up for you. There is usually a mosh pit, yes. If the venue is large enough, several rings of moshers will form in various parts of the crowd. But people aren’t just throwing punches and elbowing each other in the face, usually. There’s an etiquette to it. People help each other out. At a Death Grips show a couple of years ago, the man next to me lost his contact lens, and the moshers formed a protective circle around him as he looked for it. And you don’t have to mosh if you don’t want to. At this Show Me the Body show, a lot of people hung out towards the back and the walls, and nobody bothered them. It’s generally a respectful atmosphere, and I recommend everybody who likes live music to try it once.
The most intense moments of the night came when Show Me the Body performed their new material. In one standout song, Pratt repeated the words “I will wait for the blood to make it real” over Steed’s dark, thumping bassline; the result was at once unsettling and energizing — a real set highlight. In another unreleased track, Pratt snarled, “It’s the US baby, who you gonna use?” The crowd howled in response. This band has always been anti-establishment, but lines like this seem to hit harder now, as violence plays on loop on our phone screens in ways that seemed unfathomable when Show Me the Body formed in 2009.
During set closer “Loose Talk,” Pratt, now shirtless, leapt into the audience and screamed, “Love and respect/Come and fuck with the set.” And amid the noise, the pushing, and the sweat, the crowd found release.