There’s every other hardcore festival, and then there’s Sound And Fury. The Sound And Fury fest has been a Southern California institution since 2006, and it’s gotten big in recent years. Last year, Sound And Fury returned after a prolonged pandemic break, coming to LA’s Exposition Park and putting on what was, by most estimates, the biggest North American hardcore festival in history. In a true flashpoint moment for the booming hardcore world, thousands of people came out to see, among other things, Gulch’s final show. This past weekend, Sound And Fury did it again.

This year’s Sound And Fury lineup had many of the most exciting up-and-coming bands in hardcore, including Speed, Gel, High Vis, Pain Of Truth, and Restraining Order. But the festival also devoted significant time to the bands who built the festival over the past 17 years: Twitching Tongues, Fury, Minority Unit, Soul Search, and headliners Cold World and Trapped Under Ice.

The Trapped Under Ice set, which closed out the festival, was the big one. It’s entirely possible that Turnstile, right now, are the most popular hardcore band in history. But Turnstile essentially started out as a Trapped Under Ice side project — the band that babyfaced teenage TUI drummer Brendan Yates sang for. Earlier this year, Trapped Under Ice returned to headline their hometown Baltimore festival Disturbin’ The Peace. Since then, the band has played a few more shows: A headlining set at the Brooklyn Monarch and spots at the hardcore fests Tied Down and Outbreak. Yates couldn’t play those shows because he was touring with Turnstile; Never Ending Game’s Derrick Daniel filled in for him. Last night, though, Brendan Yates once again played with Trapped Under Ice.

Once of the kinda-sad things about Turnstile becoming massively popular is that the band’s members haven’t been able to devote much energy to other projects. A bunch of Turnstile members, were also in Angel Du$t with TUI frontman Justice Tripp until recently. Tripp has had to put together a whole new Angel Du$t lineup, and their next album should be awesome. But there’s something truly beautiful about seeing Trapped Under Ice’s peak-era lineup fully intact, kicking ass. The videos from last night’s set look absolutely insane. (Some good footage comes from Travis Barker’s Instagram story. Barker, whose Blink-182 are currently on tour with Turnstile, made the trip out to Exposition Park. Good for him.) Watch some videos below.

https://twitter.com/chrisgonzyo/status/1685901028628283392

https://twitter.com/MahAniDrum/status/1685880503717761024

Another Turnstile member also took part in last night’s Trapped Under Ice set. Bassist Freaky Franz Lyons, once TUI’s merch guy, came out and sang his part from “Street Lights.”

During the first day of Sound And Fury, there were two big topics of conversation. One was the barricade. Reportedly, a fire marshal demanded that the organizers put up a barricade immediately before doors opened, and the metal bike rack looked extremely dangerous. Thankfully, it was gone on the second night. The other big topic was Ceremony, a past Sound And Fury headliner, returning to play a secret set. During their extremely brief moment onstage, Ceremony, a band that’s gone through tons of musical evolutions, returned to their powerviolence roots, playing their 2005 debut EP Ruined in full. Watch that Ceremony set below.

https://twitter.com/johnnyappeal/status/1685498524522422272

The YouTube channel Stay Thicc has been posting Sound And Fury videos; you can watch the full sets from Big Boy, Minority Unit, and Cold World below.

I seriously thought about making the trip out to LA this year, but I decided to stay in Virginia and see another great reactivated hardcore band headline another festival in another field. I might write more about that today.