Is it OK to go to hardcore shows now? I honestly have no idea. I hope so. For a year and a half, many of us spent long hours zoning out, imagining some vague future moment when live music would return. Hardcore -- both genre of music and the culture surrounding it -- is largely based on the idea of redemptive catharsis, of these brief and glorious little windows where you can give physical release to whatever pent-up stresses and frustrations you might be experiencing. All this time, I've been thinking about what would happen when shows were back in full, about how good that would feel. I got a taste of that last month, when I saw Public Acid and Destruct play a ferociously fun DIY crust-punk show under a bridge in Richmond. But I was really looking forward to the first weekend in August, when hardcore would return for real.