In November last year, Alabama Shakes vocalist/guitarist Brittany Howard announced that her new hardcore punk band, Kumite, would be making their live debut in Nashville on January 12, with all proceeds from the show being donated to local charitable organisations.
"Remember, it's hardcore as f*ck to community organize!" she posted on social media when sharing the news.
Live music booker Ben Mench-Thurlow was among the audience for the show at Basement East, which also featured Snooper, Inner Peace and Second Spirit, and he shared video footage of Kumite with the Lambgoat website, which you can view below.
While this documentation of the show seems to indicate that Kumite went down well with the Nashville crowd, the comments section on the gig report on Lambgoat is largely negative, with various anonymous posters venting their pain and despair at what they seem to view as a violation of everything sacred and true about punk rock.
"Another person who just found out about hardcore trying to jump on the train for cool points", writes one poster, while another true 'punx4lyfe' comments, "First show at a packed club with a f*cking light show= hardcore 2025. f*ck these grifters, go back to submitting your albums for Grammy consideration. So punk."
And there's more:
"I'm sure Kumite is going to grind it out, play local shows, support the local scene and mosh...oh wait nah this will die out in a year after they get some unearned festival spots. REAL HARDCORE SURE."
"A little too late to start this virtue signalcore band, trump will be in office in a week."
We'll round off this compendium of warm-hearted, supportive community sentiments with a final howl of anguish from another online punk who isn't over-reacting in the slightest to news of a band playing a gig.
Our anonymous hero writes: "Delete the world seriously time for the asteroid to hit time for a reboot ftw."
Welcome to 2025.
