HARDCORE

It was billed as a hardcore punk concert, but forget your ideas of conventional music. What happened Wednesday night at the Grandin was more an exercise in theater - a theater of anarchy, energy and absurdity.

Four bands, including two from Roanoke, appeared at the event, which was promoted by Mike Wolke, owner of the Penguin Tracs record shop, and two young Roanoke musicians, Lawson Jaeger and Matt Chittum.

Jaeger, 16, hoped to "get more participation, to open people's eyes to a new form of music in the Roanoke Valley."

The gathering of more than 250 punks and curious onlookers included visitors from Blacksburg, Lynchburg, Washington and Raleigh, N.C. Mary Huff, bass player for Roanoke group MNP, estimated that more than half of the audience was from out of town.

To the uninitiated, the most startling performers weren't on stage - they were on the floor in an organized brawl called "slam dancing."

The beginning of each song ignited a new round of slamming among the dozen or so dancers. To visualize slam dancing, recall the fights in "Andy Capp": a dust cloud with fists and feet flailing out.From time to time, dancers climbed to the stage, then took a swan-dive into the mob.

"It's a little hard to explain," said Holton Austin, an 18-year-old graduate of Patrick Henry High School. "It's a lot like playing football. No one's out to hurt anybody, it's just a way to get rid of a little energy."

Anthony Gilbert, 18, emerged from the melee with a bleeding nose. He was asked if he was having a good time.

"Hell, yes," he said. "Wouldn't have it any other way.

Jody Hunsaker, a 13-year-old James Madison Junior High student, wasn't going anywhere near the mob. "It's dangerous," she said."People wear spiked bracelets and they try to hurt each other, that's what it's all about."

Promoter Mike Wolke says slam dancing is always shocking to first-time observers. "It's not so bad as it looks," he said. Sure, people were stage-diving, he said, but they were almost always caught by those underneath.

Providing a raucous soundtrack to the evening were the four hard-core punk bands.

Egbert, one of two local groups that performed, specialized in feed-back, distortion and 6O-second pseudo musical thrashings. "Can anybody tell If we're in tune?" guitarist Matt Chittum called out before beginning the set.

One of Egbert's songs, "Attack of the Killer Noodles," was performed with an exceptional lack of finesse. "Well, we (messed) up that one but we're going to make it up to you," Chittum announced.

Chittum tried to give away a personalized howling ball to anyone in the audience named Larry. No takers.

"How about Lawrence?" he asked.

Between songs, Chittum paused to tell dumb-but-funny jokes. Healso threw out a bunch of balls, saying "Egbert wants you to have a ball, or two."

The other local group was a band called MNP, said to be the Russian word for peace (pronounced 'meer")

MNP was musically more accomplished than Egbert and visually quite a spectacle. Lead singer Jeff DeBell Jr. desperately paced the stage, whipping his jet-black mane back and forth. Jaeger's blond mop shook as he pounded the drums. Bassist Mary Huff, a pretty and slender l8-year-old with long auburn hair, stoically observed the chaos at her feet.

Every minute or two, dancers climbed onto the stage and dived back into the crowd. A tough looking punk from Washington soared over the heads of the main pack, landing somewhere in the area of the first row.

Meanwhile, DeBell would announce the song title ("Sorrow," "Evolution," "Apostasy") and the band would lash into a brief burst of noise. Occasionally he thrust the mike into the crowd to let someone else sing or comment. The punk from Washington encouraged people to get out of their seats and dance. "What is this, a ---- social event?" he asked.

The three eldest members of MNP are leaving for college in the fall; guitarist Spencer Edmunds to the University of Virginia, DeBell and Huff to study art and music at Virginia Commonwealth University. Jaeger, formerly a student at Madison Junior High School, will attend a prep school near Charlottesville.

The final two bands, Ugly Americans and Corrosion of Conformity, both from North Carolina, were even louder than MNP. Wolke compared the blast to Deep Purple in its heyday.

Music wasn't the only diversion. "A couple of idiots got a little out of line," Jaeger said later.

There were several shoving matches. A cracked water pipe resulted from one such match near a water fountain, according to Wolke. A soap dispenser was pulled off the wall in the women's bathroom, some upholstery was ripped, and an air conditioner was damaged.

The North Carolina bands were paid $75 each. How much the promoters profit from the concert will depend on the still unsettled repair bill.

Chittum, the leader of Egbert, wasn't counting on a vast profit. Said Chittum, who had bought the bunch of Superballs to throw to the audience: "We always spend more money than we make."