People in Banana Costumes at Hardcore Punk Concerts

what is your take on this vital issue

https://stereogum.com/2501693/end-it-concertgoer-in-banana-costume-tears-hardcore-community-apart/news

C-Man no longer posts so the foremost authority on this topic can not weigh in.

personally i get why people at hardcore concerts would be annoyed at people being "wacky" but when fans get all territorial and aggro against people who aren't causing any real harm, it makes them look like cops. i wouldn't wear a banana costume to a hardcore concert but i also wouldn't listen to a band who got that upset by some jagoff wearing a banana costume at their show. it's not like he was fuckin' abbie hoffman or anything.

WWNWD?

baltimoreans can be pretty aggro

are we sure this guy isn't a character in a Tim Robinson sketch

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HKKeLdxXkAABgvs?format=jpg&name=large

Egg punk vs chain punk turns violent

While, policing what people wear?

i want to say that i don't care, but ultimately i have to side with bananaman unless something surfaces where he was being confrontational etc

aggro punks espousing radical leftism but acting like cops though is a story as old as time tho

can you see the band over the top of the banana costume?

Everyone complaining about this is such a fuckin hall monitor.

You’re laughing. A man’s banana costume is destroyed and you’re laughing.

Gen Z is pretty hall monitor-ish in general compared to millens y/n

hardcore punks once again turning out to be conservatives

This is real "let them fight" territory

One side is bullying and threatening violence and the other side is wearing a banana costume.

Team banana obviously.

“Asking people to destroy a banana costume is violence, actually”

Come on, of course it’s violence

It’s just that in this instance, the violence is kind of funny

^ this

generally I am on team egg punk here tho, the band were being dicks and the venue is pissed as well since the dude was a regular

still a world away from the "beat up the longhairs for real" stuff happening in the early 80s

“Asking people to destroy a banana costume is violence, actually”

― EsBeeKid (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 9, 2026 1:28 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Did you miss the "Now everyone here has to kill you"?

I’m in the morally suspect position of agreeing that this attack was wrong but also giggling every time I think about it

You guys sound like the MAGA dudes who claim BLM was “violent” because they burned a car a car or whatever. Destroying a banana costume is not violence.

Watch your fucking mouth

They still have Hardcore punk shows? Fucking losers.

Trashing a banana costume isn’t violence. Getting a load of amped up punks to trash a banana costume while the guy is wearing it looks a lot like violence to me.

pretty much, yeah

The guy standing near the stage at a hardcore show must have been quite surprised when things got a little rowdy!

Post through it, it’s the only thing you know

Fucking loser

People have been trying to dim my sparkle my entire life. It sucks, but I'm used to it.

lol c'mon there's some difference between going to a hardcore show and being part of the camaraderie of smashing into people vs. being the target of the band and the entire audience. For the record I also think it was funny.

i just don't understand how being the guy in the banana costume doesn't lose its novelty after the first 10 minutes, especially if you're going to see music that involves a lot of movement.

if you insist on being the main character, well sometimes bad things happen to the main character

That shit-ass band incited violence against a fan in order to police his clothing before *checks notes* yelling without irony "fuck the police."

And yes, it was violence. Tearing clothing off someone is assault.

Wtf is with all this conformist "main character energy" bullshit being used to justify violence? If someone is being a bit of a dick but not actively bothering anyone, just ignore them.

Guy in a banana suit tripping balls somewhere on the lawn at Dead show: sure, why not.

Guy in a banana suit at a hardcore punk show in a tiny club: gtfoh, dude.

what's punk all about if it's not sticking to a rigidly defined uniform and encouraging violence to any weirdo who breaks ranks?

gtfoh with “violence”

0 people got hurt

Judd Apatow says Will Smith ‘could have killed’ Chris Rock in #Oscars slap. pic.twitter.com/C5Ai06TqrF

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) March 29, 2022

“Asking people to destroy a banana costume is violence, actually”

― EsBeeKid (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 9, 2026 10:28 AM

they're just paying tribute to those who came before them

peel slowly and see

thank y'all for bringing the snark to this thread. my friends were all "god how could those people be such dicks" but also i think a lot of my friends think these guys are hardcore punk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-HKqN3WM54

like i feel like it would be unusual if _nobody_ wore a banana costume to a sex machineguns concert

anyway seriously thank you because my brain is hopelessly nuance-pilled and i can't think of a controversy _less_ deserving of nuanced takes than this one.

everyone== he’s a dork but he didn’t deserve that
whiney==dorks get swirlies
kate== ????

Punk is truly dead if you can’t dress up as a Velvet Underground album at a show.

loooooook

honestly i'm on team djp

i'm probably _supposed_ to be on the side of "egg punk", which apparently did _not_ get its name from the way that people who play in egg punk bands tend to look like every fucking egg i have ever seen, but c'mon dude. dude. why the fuck are you gonna dress up like a banana at a hardcore punk show. were you hoping they would invite you up on stage to rap about pizza? i'm in favor of tolerance and diversity and even cringe but look. ian mackaye wouldn't have done anything like the people in this boring band did, but also i can well imagine ian mackaye saying something _completely_ eviscerating about this dude and i'd fucking applaud him for it.

Punk is truly dead if you can’t dress up as a Velvet Underground album at a show.

― The Quaker Gurvitz Army (President Keyes), Tuesday, June 9, 2026 5:45 PM (four minutes ago)

no see this is my point

if this dude was a REAL punk he'd be wearing a penis costume _under_ his banana peel costume

ok it was literally a pink banana but c'mon. it's 2026. wear the fuckin' penis costume.

^^^ the best answer

bananaman obviously a dork who wanted to bait people but the End It guy is 100x dorkier for taking the bait, people used to whip glass bottles & batteries at hardcore singers and this drip is triggered by a polyester banana, absolutely corny af

whether or not its violence its just lame letting a banana run you like that, turn in your hardcore card

The banana that defined a generation

just lumping this round of bad banana jokes into one post here:

sure but i want to move past the physical aspect and to the emotional part. by dimming this man's sparkle has his life irrevocably changed forever? possibly. is that a good thing? as a hater and critic i say yes, but some could say no, and i'm not sure what my argument back would be except "corny people should be reprimanded for being corny." but why? because they should! but why?

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, June 10, 2026 11:15 AM (three hours ago)

oh, wait, are we talking about cringe discourse? nah you lose me there, i'm strongly pro-cringe. extending "call-out" culture to public wearers of banana peel suits is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay over the line.

Another variation of this I've seen is "naked guy"

― EsBeeKid (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, June 10, 2026

can't get behind you there, i'm out in Oregon, we stan Pole Guy round these parts

When I wear the banana costume I carry my AR-15.

― The Quaker Gurvitz Army (President Keyes)

when i hear the word "hardcore" i release the catch on my banana peel costume

I really love that this is now the SECOND post in this thread to equate wearing a banana costume to being trans or queer

― EsBeeKid (Whiney G. Weingarten)

third. if it counts when they do it, it fucking counts when i do it.

You need to cut banana guys out at the root.

― EsBeeKid (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, June 10, 2026 11:47 AM

oi look at harry belafonte over here

Like Death Grips probably doesn't perform anymore partially because their dipshit fans show up in propeller beanies and lollipops.

and thus whiney became an accidental ally of banana suit guy

what if you're so into meme culture and irony that you make the cover of your album an uncensored erect penis

― frogbs, Wednesday, June 10, 2026 12:07 PM

if i had a nickel for every time a guy tried to defend himself by claiming it was an "ironic" dick pic, i'd _still_ have way too many dick pics

like, dudes, i can't suck off a picture. trust me, i've tried.

Moreover, the whole "if we leave banana guy alone it will create a slippery slope that will ruin the scene" argument is even sillier than showing up to a concert dressed as fruit.

― feed me with your chips (zchyrs), Wednesday, June 10, 2026 1:08 PM

what, you've never seen someone slip on a banana peel?

After so much success last year — a total of 1,500 people dressed up as bananas took over the downtown bar scene in 2024 — the Banana Bar Crawl is making its return, and if last year's chaos was anything to go by, things are about to get...interesting.

― The Quaker Gurvitz Army (President Keyes)

is that a real banana or is that a sears banana

Let's also not forget that maybe a black frontman should be able to sing his songs about fascism and police brutality without some main character drama kid flapping around in "peanut butter jelly time" cosplay, let alone with a bunch of ILXors harrumphing "Why don't you pay attention to what's on the *stage*, sir. Triggered much?"

― EsBeeKid (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, June 10, 2026 11:13 AM

ok, breaking kayfabe here, serious post. at the risk of making this a bigger deal than it really needs to be, look, whiney. from one white person to another - this shit isn't cool. you did this with dave chappelle too. nobody's asking for us to fucking play white knight.

are hardcore shows normally that brightly lit?

the kind of hardcore that End It play, yes they often are. iirc it's so you can see who you're crowd killing better, easier to pick someone who's smaller than you

it seems like people in this thread are a bit confused about what sort of band this is - references to battle jackets, bullet belts, chain punk etc. this isn't a leather jackets and spikes band. it's a tough guy hardcore band. people will be wearing sportswear. baggy shorts, baseball caps and shirts and stuff not like "punk" clothes and mohawks

has anyone asked Taco Bell what they think about this yet?

Apparently End It deleted their Facebook page and was dropped from the Hatebreed/Life of Agony tour.

Peel Slowly and Find Out

if this results in people dressing as solidarity bananas that will be so fucking funny

Apparently End It deleted their Facebook page and was dropped from the Hatebreed/Life of Agony tour.

both "seems harsh to me" and "If I'm Hatebreed or LoA any extra drama is very unwelcome"

when I heard Turnstile described as 'hardcore,' I stashed my denim vest in the closet... we had a good run

the kind of hardcore that End It play, yes they often are. iirc it's so you can see who you're crowd killing better, easier to pick someone who's smaller than you

it seems like people in this thread are a bit confused about what sort of band this is - references to battle jackets, bullet belts, chain punk etc. this isn't a leather jackets and spikes band. it's a tough guy hardcore band. people will be wearing sportswear. baggy shorts, baseball caps and shirts and stuff not like "punk" clothes and mohawks

has anyone asked Taco Bell what they think about this yet?

― Colonel Poo, Wednesday, June 10, 2026 6:40 PM (forty-seven minutes ago)

Thanks for answering that. I am not at all familiar with this scene, so the video was genuinely not what I was imagining when I read the stereogum post. The lighting, but yeah also the clothes as you described and the crowd behaviour. Banana guy does stand right at the front (and looks to be fairly tall, but also the stage is pretty elevated so I'm not sure how annoying it would really be, esp given no one at the front is standing and watching) so seems poised for crowd action, but obvs not for what happens.

so reading up on LoA I guess the main guy transitioned and then detransitioned and is now militantly anti-trans? idk anything else about End but if I'm them I'm very happy to be off this tour

wowwww this plot is getting so thick

He said he was glad Donald Trump won the 2024 United States presidential election due to his campaign promise to ban sex reassignment and cross-sex hormones for minors.[41]

so in conclusion the punk band that screamed "free Palestine" is touring with a pro-Trump band??? what is even happening here

Is this music even real hardcore? The bands on this tour seem like some Headbangers Ball guys trying to “go punk”

Life of Agony and Hatebreed are longtimers in the scene.

Wiki describes LoA as "alternative metal" and Hatebreed as "metalcore," and to my ears End It also sound more "metal" to me than "hardcore punk" but I am far from an expert and also my sense of what constitutes hardcore punk is almost entirely informed by the classic '80s groups or else local bands who pretty much sound like that strain

This thread: “This is how hardcore bands should act”

Also this thread: “Who is Hatebreed?”

End It being kicked off a hardcore bill for some bullshit while Life of Agony can call for violence against trans ppl. Something something holding Black ppl to a higher standard. 🙄 https://t.co/eL66m9d7ms

— Raz 🇵🇸🇨🇺🇮🇷🇮🇪📕🔜 AC, MGPLX(?), Furpoc, (@RazLikesRocks) June 11, 2026

Ding ding ding

This thread: “This is how hardcore bands should act”

Also this thread: “Who is Hatebreed?”

― EsBeeKid (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, June 11, 2026 4:43 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's almost like there are different posters expressing different viewpoints. Also, go fuck yourself

Fucking loser

― Whatwhawhawhaehawhahwawhawwww (DJP), Tuesday, June 9, 2026 7:07 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

the real crime here was being filmed getting mad at a dude in a banana suit, that's the sort of thing that goes viral on the dead internet these days

don't really agree that the dude was asking for it but shows like this can be kind of a lawless place, prob worse shit going on every day that is not going viral because it doesn't involve a banana man

colonol poo: ftr my chain punk ref was in jest

Frontman previously accused of violence by an ex-girlfriend.

https://i.ibb.co/chV6CQhf/Screenshot-20260611-015931-Facebook.jpg

I'm on team "fuck this", the banana costume thing has been more of a thing at metal shows but while I would certainly cheer on calling on your crew to take out the trash if someone showed up with a sunwheel tattoo or a MAGA hat, this is just a dude being a goof. And he probably was there to see Terror, the headliner, anyway.

If you've never been publicly humiliated or been made a target for hundreds of amped up people to pounce on to where you go into fight or flight mode, it might not make as much sense....but yeah.

I don't really wanna juice up the jock element of the scene, nor a bunch of overstimulated punks being directed to attack and complying via a creepy show of group think. There's a time and place for that, it ain't a guy in a banana costume

"If you've never been publicly humiliated or been made a target for hundreds of amped up people to pounce on to where you go into fight or flight mode, it might not make as much sense....but yeah."

i do agree it makes no sense to wear a banana costume in public if you're trying to not be publically humiliated

also, i am a fucking loser!

nobody here is actually in favor of phyiscally harming this banana man, get a fucking grip

Also Whiney as a dude that likes you, you're using cheap devices to try to win this debate on moral grounds when it's clear you really just liked a goofy dude getting clowned.

Like the Caputo heel turn is something I've been following for a while. It's heartbreaking and gross. I don't think anybody itt is suggesting Bananabeatdown 2026 is as bad in scope as Keith betraying and selling out his trans audience. And they should have received blowback from it that instead of being allowed to more or less tour business as usual with heavies like Jasta/Hatebreed.

But the reason they ain't getting booted off this tour is *it's their co-headlining tour*, am fairly sure Jasta was already aware of the controversy when he booked the tour and it wasn't enough to get him to nix it, which is disappointing in and of itself.

It's a bit of a weird gotcha to pull itt too because, like with Hatebreed, one could also be asking why a hardcore punk band like End It preaching inclusion would voluntarily accept a gig opening for LoA (unless they simply weren't aware). Yea, LoA shouldn't have the gig, but why did you sign onto it to begin with? Bands are boycotted in the punk scene for far less.

Also LoA being allowed to perform or not has no bearing on whether it's cool to target an audience member with violence (which i know you insist didn't happen). Both things can be wrong.

The other thing? This wasn't their show, they weren't even the opener directly before the headliner (Terror). When you're invited on a tour by a hardcore band, generally they're going to expect you to not harass or alienate their fans unless you have a good reason (i.e. BEING A NAZI, preferring the wrong Husker Du album).

I have no idea how Terror feels on the matter, being macho jock hardcore, they probably found it funny. But other bands see that as a liability.

Just because the guy and his band have opinions I agree with on police, fascism, and Palestine doesn't mean nobody should call them out for shit behavior.

This will wind up being a barely remembered footnote a year from now and End It will eventually be able to move on from it, possibly even for the better with the extra notoriety they got from it. The problem with the internet is every controversy gets biggerabd stupider than it should because everyone is "too online" in the post-COVID times world.

brimstead, as someone who likes you...fucking cool it

Also for those speculating on the nature of his injuries, like...why does it matter. If you see someone get slapped on the street for doing nothing at all, do you shrug and say "aw who cares, it doesn't look like it hurt much".

Like I got crowdkilled at a Nails show once where I got both punched and kicked in the stomach by some asshole in quick succession by no one near the pit, nothing resulting in more than short term soreness, but it ruined the show for me and I left early as a result. It isn't fun.

Also everyone being weird about hos outlandish the behavior is, maybe it's because I'm a metal guy and go to a lot of festivals but I've seen people come dressed as:

-Jesus
-chickens
-bananas
-dinosaurs

Hardcore is a different scene, esp this brand, but given how many Hardcore kids I know who spend an hour working on their Mohawk, deciding between which of their three obscure Hardcore tshirts will make them look l33t, and deciding on accessories, all while practicing their spin kicks in front of a mirror. the whole base needs to get over themselves.

This is real "we're a culture, not a costume!" energy

(And with that I've just "firmly taken a side in the internet controversy of the moment " after saying i wouldn't do it so...hooray)

What if banana guy was doing a racism all along

I have been wanting to make that point this entire thread. Bananas being chucked at black people (especially at football matches) is canon British racism

It could even be argued that pointedly wearing a banana suit right in front of a band with a black frontman is implicitly racist due to this 'tradition' and my guess is that said frontman saw it that way and responded accordingly

Serious: imago, that occured to me yesterday. Surprised I haven't seen the idea in any online discourse about the incident.

Also serious: WGW, what if the guy had been wearing a Kool-Aid Man costume?

I thought I heard that dude was a regular at the venue who wore a banana suit all the time

Yes, the guy is a regular at the club, and known for his banananantics. But I think imago's point is that, as a musician passing through, it's possible that the End It singer wasn't aware of that. And as a black musician who sings about racism, could have interpretted it as racist taunting a la Italian soccer fans.

I'm just going off of what the frontman said in the clip, but I don't see any evidence that this is how he was interpreting the banana costume.

Neanderthal brutally otm once again

ime an unaddressed dynamic in these spaces is that a lot of macho jock type hc guys hate cops bc they themselves are bad guys

I am certainly not going to speak for all Black people in North America, but I will say from my specific Black North American perspective I would not expect a Black man fromBaltimore to see a man in Toronto dressed up in a banana costume and immediately jump to “this is a racist attack”

Even if that did come up, I would not be surprised if it was subsumed by “this is so stupid”; dressing up as a banana to racially taunt someone falls squarely into my “is that really the best you’ve got” zone and I feel like that can’t be a uniquely me reaction

more details I found on Life of Agony if you needed more context on Neando's post as I did

https://www.reddit.com/r/Hardcore/s/HMAf5Gdv3C

wrt Life of Agony and trans fans

I have been wanting to make that point this entire thread. Bananas being chucked at black people (especially at football matches) is canon British racism

― imago, Thursday, June 11, 2026 5:45 AM bookmarkflaglink

That's a bit of a reach. For one, they weren't even a headliner, they were like the third opener, seems a bit weird to wear a costume for an entire show to insult one guy in one specific band.

It's also not even clear whether banana guy was aware of who End It were before the show, and people dressing as bananas is just "a thing" - they did it at a Primus show here once.

Additionally the band's comments didn't address this and seemed focused on him seeking attention.

Great posts up there Neando, think that's all there is to be said IMO

xpost Also quite a difference between wearing a costume and throwing things at people.

Fair enough. Felt it was worth noting as a potential factor, but feels tangential here yes

On one of the 3000 Reddit threads about this, one of the posters pointed out that the bass player, AJ Hoenings, who basically directed the crowd against another banana costumed person weeks earlier when he played in No Pressure, though not in as hostile a fashion. He's white.

He deserves more share of the blame rather than just the frontman taking the hit, since he was the one who gave the directive to beat on the guy. And that's a fair callout...

the funniest part is they have basically guaranteed they are going to see banana suits in their crowds for the rest of their career

lol

time for the band to accept the inevitable and don banana suits themselves

sonned by a canadian in a banana beef... tragic

This might have a chilling effect on bananas