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Flogging Molly has a very large fan base, especially in Montreal. The concert was sold out mid-day  of the show and fans of this Irish punk band were lined up outside Metropolis an hour before doors were scheduled to open. Not only is Flogging Molly one of the most entertaining bands to see live, but they have this uncanny talent for picking the best opening bands. This year there were two very different bands that opened for good ol' Floggy and both were insanely good!

Dub Trio, their name couldn't be more different than their sound. Yes, there are three of them in the band but their sound is more metal than electronic and consists mainly of loud power chords. Needless to say they were awesome. These guys looked like they were really enjoying themselves on stage, almost as much as the crowd- who were shouting and dancing in the pit below.

Speaking of dancing, the venue was so packed for the show that there were absolutely no seats! The sitting area became the 'standing' area...not cool Metropolis, not cool.

Up next were The Aggrolites is a ska, reggae band.  Now, the entire week preceding the upcoming Floggy show all anyone talked about was how this really awesome band were opening for Flogging Molly. So I was very curious as to whether or not these guys could live up to their reputation. They did and the crowd went mad. They were crowd surfing, dancing, screaming and singing along.

So far, this concert was the best I'd been to all year and I didn't think it would get better but it did thanks to Flogging Molly.

 I've seen the band before and they didn’t disappoint, but this year they were amazing! The entire band was on that night, slightly drunk and all the more fun. Frontman Dave King  is living proof that age doesn’t really matter. This guy is an energy drink… he boozed he shmoozed, sang and danced. Hell he even did a jig! (no joke) It was great. Flogging Molly is one of those ageless bands that gets better every year.

So get yer flog on and try and catch these guys the next time they're in town. It’ll make you happy. Seriously.

Wasting no time on hyperbole, I’m just gonna jump right to the quotable: The World/Inferno Friendship Society skirt the line between innovation and outright inspiration and their entirely unique brand of orchestral, cabaret proto-punk may very well bring new life to a genre rife with cliché and stale personalities (and if you disagree you are wrong.)

Being an Inferno fan for quite some time now, I was more than a little stoked to hear they would be making the trip up to Montreal to finally play the city (and indeed Canada proper) for the first time in the band’s 13 year history. That having been said, I still did not know what to expect. Having seen the band three times before this (each time with a slightly different version of their constantly evolving lineup), I could safely make the claim that much of the magic of a World/Inferno show comes not just from what happens on stage, but the interplay between performer and audience. For those not in the know, there really is no such thing as a casual World/Inferno fan. If you don’t hate them then you fucking LOVE them and express that love by acting incredibly stupid (in the best meaning of the word possible) while in their presence. I would go so far as to say that the band not only encourages this, but bases their career on the unity and love shown by their fans (evident in, if nothing else, their name.) However, my worry going in was that Montreal, a city that loves their punk rock but at the same time doesn’t really allow for all that much innovation in said punk rock, might see a piano and a horn section and immediately call it “gay” (or worse, “ska”) and move on sight unseen and sound unheard. Without the intensity and backup of the crowd to compliment the intensity and creative energy of the band, would the Inferno translate as well live?

Turns out my worries were only half accurate: indeed, there were very few Montrealers present at Petit Campus that night (and a decent chunk of them were IN local openers, friends of CJLO and all around solid dudes Winslow or part of Team Winslow on the whole.) However, the true intensity and devotion of the average Inferno fan was a concept I had not considered in my predictions and by the time the band took the stage the dance floor was respectfully filled with some fine folk with entirely too much time on their hands from the band’s native New York (and a few unfortunate souls from Jersey), making the show itself seem just populated enough. Lead by the enigmatic Jack Terricloth, the slightly smaller than usual line-up (only seven members as opposed to the usual nine or ten, including new drummer and similarly solid dude Brian Viglione, formerly of The Dresden Dolls) took the stage and lead the audience in the traditional recitation of the band’s name before launching into long time Inferno set opener “Tattoos Fade.”

What followed was a full hour and a half of new material peppered with Inferno classics. While the majority of the set was made up of this new material, the band still found the time for fan favorite “hits” such as “Just The Best Party”, “The Brother of the Mayor of Bridgewater”, “Zen and the Art of Breaking Everything In This Room” and “Heart Attack ‘64”. Worthy of note is the fact that the majority of the new stuff featured Terricloth on a rather beat up but still functional acoustic guitar, which brought a smile to the face of THIS Sticks and Stones fan (if you aren’t familiar with Sticks and Stones and Terricloth’s role in it than you have some homework to do…trust me, you won’t regret it.)

While the band very much functions as a unit and includes many powerful musical minds, it really is the Jack Terricloth show and as a front man he has no equal (except maybe Eugene Hutz and even then it’d be close with Jack ultimately coming out on top.) Dressed in his usual custom suit and swilling red wine, he drew his audience in and enthralled them with stories of his three favorite things: money, drugs and sex and his interactions with them over his deceptively long life (which is the nice way of saying he’s fucking old…but as he says, punks age incredibly well.) It’s really difficult to listen to his words and NOT be inspired by his sincerity and mystique. While introducing one of the aforementioned new tracks he pointed out that one should never let a silly thing like the truth get in the way of a good story and just like that I had a new mantra to base my life on.

More a family reunion than a concert, a cultic ceremonial performance than a punk rock show, the band left the stage that night promising this may have been their first show here, but it certainly would not be the last. I’d say I’ll wait with baited breath for their return, but having them come to me is simply a convenience and by no means a prerequisite…I’ll probably be “that guy from Montreal at the World/Inferno show decidedly NOT in Montreal” for years to come (and I wouldn’t have it any other way.)

Cheers.   

Now let me just start this review by saying I was slightly worried while going in to the latest Montreal appearance from Manitoba’s Propagandhi (and that worry had nothing to do with the overzealous bouncer at Club Soda taking the batteries out of my portable recorder for fear that I would bootleg the show…although I was then half inclined to go buy new batteries and bootleg it on principle…but that’s neither here nor there.) Rather, in the months leading up to the show I experienced the following interaction more times than I can count with dudes who were wearing polo shirts: “you like punk rock?! Dude have you heard the new Propagandhi (pronounced “propaGANDI” as most French Canadians are wont to do) record?!?!” Now, don’t get me wrong: I love Propagandhi…I love what they stand for, I love the way they go about getting their message across (living entirely within the harder void of melodic-hardcore) and I cannot deny the impact they have had on the North American punk and hardcore scene throughout the course of their over 20 year history (specifically in Canada.)

However, (again, specifically in Canada) they are in every sense of the term “that band.” The band that every poseur who likes to fancy themselves a rebel gravitates to because, if I had to guess, they are loud and swear a lot (this is what Rage Against the Machine was in the 90s and Anti-Flag is in the U.S. now.) Therefore, I was expecting the usual Montreal almost-but-kinda mainstream punk show audience: guys in polo shirts who understand zero English, swilling Heineken with their buddies and frequently forgetting they aren’t at a hockey game and their loud and equally francophone girlfriends. Generally, shows like this make me want to commit poseur genocide. Were it not for CJLOs own Brian Hastie and his manservant Alexander keeping me distracted and the promise of what was sure to be an excellent opening set from Richmond, Virginia’s Strike Anywhere, I very well might have.

Speaking of distractions, while checking out the mass amount of activist propaganda the band brought on tour with them, I heard a charging drum beat coming from the main room and remembered there were actually TWO openers on the bill. After making our way inside to gawk at Montreal’s own Humanifesto, we found ourselves back outside in search of pizza five minutes later. Overly nasal and lyrically contrived, I’m fairly certain the only reason these mooks were allowed to open the show was because of their name. Thumbs down.

Following some delicious pizza from our friends at “that-place-across-the-street-from-foufs” we made our way back inside for the band I was unquestionably the most excited to see: Strike Anywhere. Having been a fan of their politically charged street punk stylings for many years but not having seen them for over a year, I was jonesing for some sweet sweet almost southern-fried punk rock. In this regard, I was not disappointed: their slightly more than 30 minute set hit all the right marks with tracks from all three of their full lengths and their upcoming record out this October and all the requisite intensity and sincerity one would expect from one of the most earnest bands out there today. My problem was the fact that while the room was more than packed, only about ten or fifteen people (including Hastie and myself) really seemed to be into it, which only hammered home the disconnect between the material being put forward by the bands and the audience that had rolled up because they like it when people swear. Simply put: if you like Propagandhi for the right reasons (well crafted hardcore with a message sharp enough to cut through concrete) then you should like Strike Anywhere and if you don’t you are wrong.

Which I guess brings us to Propagandhi themselves. After a relatively earnest presentation by volunteers from the Rainforest Action Network (good kids…I felt for them slightly given that NO ONE gave a shit about what they had to say), the band took to the stage and the room exploded as a lot of now very drunk French Canadians finally got to punch something. I know the band opened with the title track of their latest release, Supporting Caste but I can honestly say I tuned out after that. While it’s probably the number one crime all music snobs commit, I finally let my disgust with the audience take over.  Even though I should be used to it by now, it still boggles my mind how so many people can be so absent minded. Here are some of the smartest, well versed punks the nation of Canada has to offer and I’d say only about 6% of those in attendance knew and appreciated what they had to say. Of the other 94%, I’d say give or take 50% didn’t understand the lyrics AT ALL (thanks language laws), and the other 50 just didn’t care and were there because the band was loud and swore a lot. I’ve often called the band the Canadian Anti-Flag and I’m gonna stick to my guns on that one. However, the comparison stems not from anything the band does themselves, but how people react to them. Now, the jury is still out on how I feel about the whole “throw political jargon at a bunch of blockheads and eventually one or two will get it” line of logic, but I will say that I see little point in laying this good shit out for a bunch of drunken assholes who will wake up the next morning and make zero changes to their lifestyle.

Or maybe I’m just an overly sentimental pseudo-activist with an axe to grind. Either way I just got you to read 960 words chock full of slanted ideas and musical elitism…I somehow think Chris Hannah would be proud.

My admirably apt associate summed up the Warped Tour 2009 experience pretty well, so I won’t bore you with a second recounting of the day’s events. I also won’t bother with the obligatory “this was my sixth and last Warped Tour because I am OLD” spiel that encapsulated my reviews of the last two years of everyone’s favorite summer cash suck. Mostly since A) it probably isn’t and B) I’m not old...not yet, and in fact Warped Tour 2009 actually made me feel a lot younger than I’ve felt in a good long while (not like the jump from 15 to 22 is all that impressive…if I were 36 maybe that statement would mean more, but I’m gonna run with it.) 

When I was younger I held this naïve assumption that while laypeople like me could judge bands favorably or unfavorably, there was a general sense of unity amongst “bands.” As I grew older, I realized this is starkly not the case and in fact musicians have been waging war amongst themselves, usually over the entirely silly concept of “credibility”, much longer than I’ve been on this Earth. This elitism has been especially present on The Warped Tour over the past give or take seven years. While initially founded as a summer, carnival inspired punk and ska tour, the lineups rapidly expanded to include representatives from such esteemed genres as emo, screamo, metalcore or, essentially, whatever happened to be hot amongst vaguely alternative kids that year. As the lineups became more diverse, the war of legitimacy raged on as the purists took up arms against the new kids, the punks glued their mohawks ever higher and the scene kids combed their hair even further down their faces. 

Then came 2009…then came “crunk-core”…then came Brokencyde. 

Admittedly, for a self-proclaimed music culture scholar, I did not see this coming. Who could have thought the once mighty hip-hop would…even COULD pervade pop culture like this? Never in a million years did I expect to see screamo kids attempt to rhyme-scream (or worse, lip-sync) over poorly constructed dance club beats. Try as I may, I did not see “crunk-core” coming. Now, admittedly, while they may or may not have attained this moniker, I’ve more or less determined Albuquerque’s Brokencyde to be a figurehead of this movement. Respected British author and commentator Warren Ellis has called the band "a near-perfect snapshot of everything that’s shit about this point in the culture" and I for one see it as a pretty apt description of these four pretty boys, decked out with their hair neatly coiffed and their guyliner (did you know that’s what they were calling it now? I sure as hell didn’t) eloquently applied screaming about tits and ass and throwing the n-word around like it was Tennessee in the 1960s. Despite having confirmation by other bands on the tour that these marvelous pretty boys were actually LIP-SYNCHING on the goddamn WARPED TOUR, kids turned out in droves to see them as well similar (read: similarly horrible) acts Millionaires, 3OH3, I Set My Friends On Fire and Jeffree Star. One could be very quick to crucify tour founder and organizer Kevin Lyman for tarnishing the almost respectable name of the Warped Tour like this, some would say almost beyond repair. However, I for one understand that times are tough right now, and in order to stay afloat at all everyone, even the punk purists, have to acknowledge (not accept, but at least acknowledge) that changes have to be made. To Lyman’s credit, he did manage to pack in a noticeable amount of “respectable”, old school acts in the form of NoFX, Less Than Jake, Bad Religion, Flogging Molly, Anti-Flag, Big D and the Kids Table and earlier on the tour, The Bouncing Souls, to the point that the few screamo acts present (Chiodos, Silverstein and Underoath to name a few) almost seemed like the odd men out, sandwiched between trends long past and trends present (whether this signals the end of screamo in the mainstream remains to be seen.) 

However, this new shift in performers had some previously unforeseen results: the legitimacy bar, once incredibly high, plummeted to the point that it all but disappeared and if you played your own guitars and wrote (and sang) your own songs, you were immediately accepted over the likes of the lip-synching pretty boys and scantily clad showgirls. Never in a million years did I expect to see any member of Bad Religion use the word “friends” and “Alexisonfire” in the same sentence. I was legitimately stunned to observe the playful back and forth between NoFX and Underoath as presented by their merchandise (mentioned above), especially after the very bitter and very public feud that occurred the last time they were on the tour together. For the first time since I was fifteen years old I saw “bands” (in general) united against a common enemy, playing their hearts out for a cause they believed in against someone they perceived as a threat (and rightfully so to some extent.) 

Therefore, when Gallows frontman Frank Carter thanked the (substantial) audience for turning up to see them, you goddamn knew he meant it. Now, I know I promised not to retread the ground laid above, but I just have to take a moment to emphasize how fucking incredible Gallows were. I’ve said in the past that Gallows are at their entertainment peak when they are goddamn pissed off. This performance proved that what may previously have been intensity manifested by anger was now very much intensity motivated by love. Gallows, possibly more than any other band that I saw that day, were doing what they were doing because they legitimately loved to be doing it SPECIFICALLY in the face of some of the other acts on the tour. I’ve been fortunate enough to see Gallows four times now and while it’s already old hat for Frank, the elder Carter, to make his way into the pit to rough house with the crowd he very much saw himself as a part of, I was legitimately surprised to see usually reserved rhythm guitar player Steven Carter throw his guitar off and jump into the crowd smiling from ear to ear during the lead out of crowd favorite track “Orchestra of Wolves.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: believe the hype, Gallows are one of the best things going on in hardcore right now and they can only get bigger (and better) from here. 

Before I wrap up, I want to mention one more act who I can honestly say not only shook me right to the bone physically, but reaffirmed the power of music to me in general: Minnesota’s own P.O.S. One of only two hip-hop acts on the tour (which is generally one more than usual), his set happened to be conveniently placed right inside the eye of the torrential downpour the pummeled Ile St. Helene that day. However, despite the rain beating down and the aural onslaught of the Anti-Flag performance happening a new yards away threatening to tear him town, P.O.S. ventured down off the stage, his microphone wrapped in a towel, and sang his heart out for the few fans dedicated enough to stand in a circle in the middle of a downpour to see a rapper perform at the Warped Tour. Despite the noticeably biting pellets of rain beating down on me, threatening cell phone destruction and future sickness, I stood my ground, marveled by the performance of this very small fish in the this very big pond. 

So that’s that…another year, another Warped Tour. It’ll be interesting to see where the tour stands next year if the changes present this year are, as some are suspecting, only the beginning. Regardless, for a few brief hours I observed a glimmer of hope for honest, hard working musicians in a scene that is quickly growing away from them. What happens next is quite literally anyone’s guess, but chances are I’ll be around to document it (or at the very least ridicule it.)