Moshpit saved me after breakup devastation changed everything

Heartbreak, as it turns out, can sabotage even your bond with Beyoncé. A year ago, when a long-term relationship collapsed without warning, the songs that had once soundtracked my happiest moments—Glastonbury sets, Madonna at Madison Square Garden, Kylie Minogue singalongs on an Australian road trip—suddenly turned on me. Every track seemed to ambush me with reminders of lost intimacy. My playlists, packed with indie bops and pop anthems, became impossible to endure; almost every lyric, I realised too late, was about love, longing, romance or sex. Pressing play meant sobbing in the shower or breaking down in public.

An accidental detour into hardcore

A few months after the split, scrolling through Spotify, I asked myself which genre sat furthest from my usual taste. I clicked without thinking and landed on a hardcore punk playlist. Unsure where to start, I hit play on the first band listed. It worked. Frantic, raw, heavy noise poured from my speakers, so loud I could hardly decipher the lyrics. Bands like Malevolence and Every Time I Die became safe territory—I could listen without crying hard enough to need cold spoons on my swollen eyes. Knocked Loose, a hardcore outfit from Kentucky, quickly became a favourite. A week after I found them, I learned they had a midnight show booked in Manchester. It felt like fate that they were coming to town just when I needed them, so I bought a ticket.

Fear, then surrender

“I’m going to die,” I thought weeks later, biting my lip as the Albert Hall in Manchester erupted. It was 2am when Knocked Loose finally appeared. I flattened myself against the wall while the crowd became a vast, throbbing mass of bodies. Limbs flew violently; people slammed into each other at full force and climbed over one another to reach the stage, only to hurl themselves straight back into the throng. I had never witnessed anything like it. The music held me spellbound, but I was terrified of landing in A&E. Then the frontman, Bryan Garris, called for more movement, and I couldn't hold back. I stepped forward and let the crowd consume me. Inside, it felt like the scene in Dirty Dancing when Baby first sees Johnny and his friends dancing in the staff quarters—intimidated, yet seized by a deep urge to join in, with no idea how and no Johnny to lift me by the hips. Then someone rammed my shoulder, sending me stumbling into a stranger. I glanced around nervously, but no one was angry and no one was hurt. I smiled. This wasn't frightening; it was fun. I soon melted into the crowd's collective mind. Moving however I pleased felt like pure relief. I didn't care where I drifted, who I collided with or how I looked. And gloriously, not one sad thought about my ex crossed my mind. I had no urge to check my phone or scroll through his social media. This sweaty bubble felt safe.

The feelings I was running from

By ghosting my playlists, I had been trying desperately to control my emotions. The music I loved had been asking me to accept my sadness, but I shoved it away and hid behind loud, abrasive bands. Yet as the night wore on and the band tore through their set, those familiar difficult feelings began creeping back. The noise had distracted me, but suddenly the blunt truth hit me: hardcore was emotional too. Beneath Knocked Loose's noisy surface lay the same vulnerability and grief I had been fleeing. The difference was that in their moshpit, I didn't have to mope. Every shove and collision let my feelings spill out. It hadn't been music causing the pain—it was me, and everything I refused to feel or accept. The whole night was like a strange, radical therapy session I had unknowingly signed up for. Afterwards, I gradually stopped avoiding my playlists. I let myself feel the difficult emotions music stirred up, and my broken heart began to mend. Last week I listened to the new Ariana Grande album without so much as a sniffle. Some Fleetwood Mac and Phoebe Bridgers songs still sting, of course; I'm only human. But the sadness they stir no longer feels consuming. I don't have beef with Beyoncé these days. I owe it to the hardcore community, who hauled me back to my feet. Now, when I don't feel so crazy in love, I head to a hardcore show, throw myself into the moshpit and hope it knocks some of those sad feelings loose.