FYA Fest 2025 Lineup Has Reunions From Foundation, The Mongoloids, Kids Like Us, & Blistered
![](https://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2024/08/FYA-Fest-1723486879.jpeg)
Every January, the hardcore year truly begins with FYA Fest, the big event where a whole lot of people get together to mosh extremely hard at Tampa’s Bryan Glazer Jewish Community Center. Even among those who don’t attend, the entire hardcore nation’s timeline always floods with images of people going crazy in a big, brightly lit room. FYA Fest’s organizers just unveiled next year’s lineup, and it’s got a few big reunions. The big news is that Foundation are coming back to headline.
Foundation, the ultra-heavy Atlanta straight-edge band, aren’t tremendously well-known outside of hardcore. Within the culture, however, they were standard-bearers for many years. Foundation only released one album, the 2011 classic When The Smoke Clears, and they broke up in 2015. Rest assured, a Foundation reunion set is going to be a very big deal.
Foundation will share headlining duties with Nails, who is not exactly reunited but who is coming back from an extended quiet period. Intermittently-active Connecticut band Death Threat are also high up on the bill. Unfortunately-monikered New Jersey speedsters the Mongoloids, another band who broke up in 2015, are coming back to play FYA, as are Florida heroes Kids Like Us and Blistered. The rest of the lineup is crammed with some of the biggest and best bands on today’s hardcore scene, including Terror, Mindforce, Fury, Big Boy, Torture, Balmora, Scarab, Conservative Military Image, Sanction, Extinguish, Missing Link, Bad Beat, Collateral, and Contention. For all the details, check here.
UPDATE: The festival is changing venues due to outcry over the JCC’s Zionist affiliations.