Kodi: The community of that place is unbelievable compared to almost any venue you’ll go to, and every single band performing on a day of the fest (even in the upstairs!) feels like an event. It doesn’t have the barrier to entry that the more expensive fests do, and it’s at a solid driving midpoint for people from anywhere in New England plus the New York/New Jersey area – but it’s not unusual to find people there who are from farther down the East Coast or the Midwest. There’s a certain rhythm to it each year that offers something for everyone, whether it’s the general balance of Friday, the sheer metal of Saturday or the hardcore pile-up to bring it home Sunday.

The greatest New England Metal & Hardcore community moment that I ever saw has to be Hatebreed on Friday in 2013, which was colored by the Boston Marathon bombing the previous Monday and its surrounding manhunt as the fest began. Public transit to Worcester was affected at one point as authorities tightened the net around their suspects, and by the time Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found hiding on a boat in the Boston suburb of Watertown, Hatebreed was on stage to a packed Palladium. Upon getting the news of Tsarnaev’s capture, Jamey Jasta announced it to the audience and then dedicated “Honor Never Dies” to the city of Boston. As you can imagine, the resulting pit was a bench-clearer. If you were on the first floor, you were hitting somebody, but in the most celebratory way possible. It was that rare moment where the catharsis of heavy music felt culturally important in a way even an outsider could understand – we were civilized, concerned people with friends and family affected by a tragedy, and justice had beaten terror, and now it was our turn to beat evil back in our own way. Some people were hugging and pogoing at the same time. I don’t know how you could ever see a set like that at a fest and not want to go back to the source of it again and again. There’s just something special in the water there.