Boys, Boys, Boys.

This is from Riva, whose eloquence - and sentiments - put us all to shame.

"i've recently been left feeling more than a little empty by live music, and hardcore in particular.

a couple of weeks ago i went to see a hardcore band that had come from far away (the band was la quiete, but trust me, won't you, that isn't the point) and the short, most diplomatic and condensed report that i can give is that i felt a truckload of nothing through the entire night. i could see that a lot of people were really into the band/s but it just wasn't doing a thing for me. there were girlfriends with inches of make-up and blokes swinging from rafters and that stuff scratched at my emotional surface but couldn't reach the dermis. usually the kind of naffness that i witnessed would turn me into a grump. i watched the crowd throughout the 'headlining' band and there was but one woman in the midst of it. there were a couple of other women who looked like they were there for themselves on the periphery and a lot of 'girlfriends' well into the sidelines. as the band's set progressed, though, all of the women but that one got pushed further and further away, to make room for the men who were unleashing their... well, whatever it was that they were unleashing (and how empowering is it, really, to match the guys at what they're doing when what they're doing is being a pack of jerk-face jocks? honestly, that's a question). that and the general lack of positive women at the show and the way that a lot of the bands honestly all sounded the same to me and the complete void of emotion that the bands left me with would ordinarily upset me, most probably a great deal. but that night i just felt empty. i felt completely disconnected from what i was in the midst of and i felt an altogether lack of desire to be connected to it. it occurred to me that for all. intents and purposes, i may as well have been at a nightclub or a mormon mass, for all the affinity i felt i had with the majority of people in the room. i left the show and told myself that i would stop going to hardcore shows and i think that i will, for the most part."