It’s just past 5PM on a perfect May Saturday at MMRBQ, and Fat Mezz has already played twice. The second set just ended, this time on the smaller stage, and the air still crackles. Marty and I are up front, flipping through the photos we snapped. That last song is still ringing in our ears. The crowd hasn’t scattered yet. Everyone’s still buzzing, talking, reliving it.

Bordentown, New Jersey. Not exactly the epicenter of anything but Wawa runs and sun-bleached nostalgia. But tonight, in the fluorescent-lit bowels of Bordentown High School — yes, a goddamn high school auditorium with a functioning PA — something is happening. Something violent and ecstatic and real.

Bordentown High School shouldn’t be the setting for a religious awakening. But here we are. Fluorescent lights humming above a polished auditorium stage, red curtains drawn back like a velvet portal to hell. Rows of rigid seating packed with the unsuspecting faithful—parents, teens, teachers, punk kids with chipped black nail polish and metalheads in Carcass shirts.