Four years ago, I wrote about Turnstile breaking all the rules during their GLOW ON tour. At the time, the Baltimore hardcore band was making the jump from the basements, bars and clubs that helped build their reputation to increasingly enormous, barricaded stages, and the question was whether they could bring that same chaotic magic with them. The answer, as it turns out, was an emphatic yes.
Four years and yet another massive album (NEVER ENOUGH) later, Turnstile have gone from those small rooms to amphitheaters, stadiums and some of the biggest festival stages in the world without losing the thing that made them so special in the first place: their ability to make absolutely everyone in the room move as one.
Their fall 2026 stop at Raleigh’s Red Hat Amphitheater was an extremely pure example. The Never Enough Tour already represents the biggest version of Turnstile yet, but there was something uniquely perfect about this particular lineup, with New York legends Agnostic Front and fellow Baltimore friends Angel Du$t surprisingly joined by Florida death metal institution Obituary. The latter was a last-minute addition after Yves Tumor was dropped off the bill, shifting an already eclectic hardcore showcase into a full-on classic collision of punk and metal.
Agnostic Front opened the night by showing everyone exactly why they’re considered forebears of the genre. Roger Miret repeatedly instructed the early arrivals to get closer, two-step and start circle pits, and by the final songs, practically the entire front section was in motion. Angel Du$t followed with something simultaneously nastier and even more danceable, setting the place ablaze before telling everyone to study up on Agnostic Front if they didn’t already know their history. For the final breakdown of their set, frontman Justice Tripp told everyone to turn the place into an Obituary pit and the Carolina crowd completely obliged.
With the sun now having set, Obituary’s iconic logo glowed brilliantly up on the big screen, and the long-haired Tampa metalheads took the stage in all of their grandeur. Watching a predominantly young hardcore crowd initially try to figure out how exactly they were supposed to dance to slower, sludgier death metal grooves was hilarious, but eventually everyone simply threw caution to the wind and moved however the hell they wanted.
Seeing hardcore dancing to songs like “Dying” or “Slowly We Rot” is pretty damn cool. The traditional circle pit practically dissolved into a series of smaller lagoons of moshing scattered throughout the floor, while people wandered around looking increasingly astonished at just how ridiculously heavy the music had gotten. You could hear people calling the set “insane” throughout the crowd, and with good reason. Even Turnstile's friend and collaborator Faye Webster could be spotted up front banging her head to the spectacle.
By the time Turnstile took the stage, the audience had already been partying for hours. The band starting the show with “Carolina in My Mind” over the speakers was maybe a little cliché, but I’ll allow it, especially after having James Taylor himself in town just a few weeks earlier. The joke ended the instant “BIRDS” began and the crowd roared with approval. Justice Tripp ran back onstage and joined Brendan Yates for the opening number, and the entire amphitheater erupted.
What followed was a masterclass in controlling the peaks and valleys of a live show. Deep purples and blues flooded the stage through generous clouds of fog, while cameras throughout the audience constantly turned the crowd into the real stars of the production. The giant screen became an endless feedback loop of energy: people screaming every word, jumping, dancing, crowd surfing, hugging strangers, locking arms and generally losing themselves in the music. The venue photographer Amanda Howard remarked that in all her years working here, she had “never seen Red Hat move like this.”
And there were people of every possible age and scene represented. Grateful Dead tie-dye, gory death metal shirts and hats, straight edge hardcore merch and everything in between. Small children with ear protection and elderly fans in wheelchairs appeared on the screen alongside excited teenagers and hardened scene veterans. Even during the calmer interludes, nobody seemed capable of standing still for very long.
At one point during “WILD WRLD,” the band stopped playing entirely after someone was injured in the pit. Yates waited until the situation was cleared, then finished the final portion of the song while thanking everyone for looking out for one another. It was a small but important reminder that all this chaos only works when everyone involved takes care of each other.
“Pick your friends up,” Yates told the crowd several times throughout the night. Raleigh happily obliged in the literal sense, producing a seemingly endless sea of crowd surfers and even lifting up the pit cameraman several times onto their shoulders.
Near the entrance to the venue, there was the Haven House Services booth - this tour stop’s collaboration with a local community outreach organization. Next to them, a rotary phone was available for fans to leave messages for the band in front of a colorful NEVER ENOUGH backdrop. Those details perfectly captures what Turnstile have become. The production is bigger, the venues are bigger and the crowds are bigger, but the show still feels like something you’re participating in rather than something you’re simply watching from afar.
That may be Turnstile’s greatest accomplishment. Plenty of acts can get a crowd excited. Turnstile have cultivated a very specific feeling: overwhelmingly positive, ridiculously fun and still fundamentally hardcore. Someone should really count just how many breakdowns happen during one of these sets, but the numbers almost don’t matter. What matters is the feeling.
From basements to bars to clubs to amphitheaters to stadiums, Turnstile continue to prove themselves to be a once-in-a-generation live act. And four years after wondering whether their magic could survive on bigger stages, I’m starting to wonder if the opposite is true.
Maybe Turnstile aren’t just bringing the magic with them. Maybe they’re making the bigger stages feel small. I can’t wait to see what that looks like another four years down the line.
Catch Turnstile on the remaining dates of THE NEVER ENOUGH TOUR PT. 2. Get tickets - HERE
