This Is Hardcore Fest 2012 Day 3 Bands in Photos

If the 8 hours of performances during days 1 and 2 of This Is Hardcore Fest 2012 didn’t beat you into the fetal position, the 12-plus hour endurance test that was Saturday’s billing at The Electric Factory surely would. Starting at a noon, gales of excitement could be heard as the coffee truck and vendors pulled into position to officially get things in motion. The heat and flash storms didn’t deter the festivities in the slightest as a dense cast of hardcore Goliaths shared the stage with rising newcomers while a steady stream of fans would quickly see the Electric Factory grounds sell out. Taking a quick gander at the line-up, its not difficult to see why Saturday saw the intensity level bumped up yet another notch. Joe Hardcore and company kept it in full gear as bands, vendors, labels, and fans rotated in and out of position.

Saturday’s lineup in order of appearance:

Empire of Rats
Oblivion
Code Orange Kids
Rude Awakening
Twitching Tongues
No Tolerance
Stick Together
Skin Like Iron
Rotting Out
Rival Mob
Horror Show
Vision
Greyarea
Bane
Title Fight
H20
Lifetime
Gorilla Biscuits

Stage Diving Olympics were a smash hit as hundreds of fans rotated on and off stage, complete with judges’ cards as bodies entered the air in every possible trajectory- giving new meaning to term “audience interaction.” The difference between This Is Hardcore Fest and your run-of-the-mill corporate festival, is that fans become as much of the show as the bands. This is a crucial staple of an organic hardcore fest. Once the stage access disappears and there are barriers between fans and bands, you are no longer experiencing a hardcore show. This notion was lost on some the Electric Factory staff who had a few among them who simply could not get their heads around the whole “hardcore” atmosphere. This became non-more-apparent than when Gorilla Biscuits took the stage. Rolling with a cluster of friends and family, GB hit the stage easily 30-deep. Electric Factory hands were less than thrilled and attempted in vein to remove the extras from the stage. After several minutes of explanation from GB‘s camp with “this is what we do” type talk, the Electric Factory backed off and let Gorilla Biscuits rip into a set that was as sonically pulverizing as it was a visual spectacle to be remembered. The images of this set may already synonymous with the This Is Hardcore Fest 2012 experience.

While most of the Blow The Scene crew was busy capturing massive galleries of candid shots of the fest, Anne Spina was stationed on stage, gathering the onstage shots of all of the performers.

For Day 3, we offer you a gargantuan 300-plus picture gallery of the events as they happened by the very talented Anne Spina Photography.

Day 4 photos coming tomorrow!

Empire Of Rats