The Damned Warped Tour, Molson Park, Barrie Ontario: August 17 2002 This is one of these bands that I can never remember how many times I saw them. I can peg the Molson Park show specifically when they played with Bad Religion, but that's about the only one where I can mark a definite date. I know Axel has dragged me to other shows, but buggered if I can remember where. lee's Palace I think. Anyway, I can highly recommend The Damned as a live act. They full of the bouncy, energetic fun. Captain Sensible no longer takes all his clothes off quite so often. I suspect that might be by request of the band, but I can't proove anything.. David Bowie Air Canada Centre, Toronto Ontario: April 1 2004 This is one of those gigs that I never would have gone to under my own steam. A big artist, a huge venue and an even bigger ticket price. But BC got tickets from work and invited me along so off we went. They were good seats too, off to the side but not too far from the stage. I could actually see the man himself and not just the image projected on the screens. Dude is looking good. He's what, in his 50's? And running around stage like a 25 year old. It was a good gig. Mostly his old hits, because frankly that's what people want to hear. But a few newer songs as well, just to keep things interesting. He only really had one dud in the set, a song about a children's television host that made me think he really needs to keep somebody in his entourage who will tell him when he's jumping the shark. Deathboy Catalyst Festival Toronto, Ontario: August 30 2003 Whitby Gothic Weekend, UK: November 2003 We got talked into hiring Deathboy when we brought Goteki over to do Catalyst - not that it was a hard sell or anything, we had already heard the album and we were more than willing to put them on stage. But on stage is exactly where you most want them - they have a live energy that really out the best in the music. They play with speed and energy and just whack the audience right in the chest with it. Scott also has a fantastic combination of humour and "fuck you" going for him. Singing to a bunch of goths at Whitby that "the 80's are dead" and "cyber is just raver so shut the fuck up" and seeing the audience just dance like mad things to it was pretty damn special. Whitby was the first time I had seen them play at a show I was putting on, so I got to really enjoy them without being stressed and freaked out. They were the opening band for the tenth anniversary year. The other acts that performed that weekend were Faith & The Muse, Inkubus Sukkubus, All Living Fear, The Chaos Engine, Wayne Hussey (doing an accoustic set this time), Goteki, Sheep On Drugs, Icon of Coil, Sorrow, Manuskript and All About Eve. D.H.I. Nekropolis, Hamilton Ontario: 1996? Neropolis used to be a club on the second floor of a building in Hamilton. They put out a compilation CD of some of the local bands that had performed there, and for the CD launch they had Death & Horror Incorporated perform. I mentioned to my friend Moses that I was thinking of going because he was from Hamilton. Moses had been ranting and raving about some band he had just seen that had just blown his socks off, and it turned out to be D.H.I. So the two of us piled into my car one night and drove an hour west of Toronto. He was all social butterfly about catching up with people he hadn't seen in a few years, so I found a comfortable corner and settled in to see the band. Who were well worth the drive. Hard, grinding, dirty, intense industrial music. After the set I went to the vendor table and bought up everything they had out. It was also the first time I saw an angle-grinder on stage. I got to go home and tell BC and Lindsey that I had in fact seen a chainsaw used as a music instrument. Dropkick Murphys Phoenix, Toronto Ontario: May 16 2000 A friend of mine turned me onto the Dropkick Murphys, and he raved about their live shows, so when I heard they were coming to town I bought tickets for myself and a friend of mine. I had no idea this band were as popular as they are. The Pheonix is a 1200-person venue. This was an all-ages gig, so they had roped off the bar at the back, and you needed ID to get in. This resulted in us travelling back and forth to drink beer, run up to the stage, run back and drink more beer, run up to the front, and so on. I still managed to get bruised and covered in other peoples' sweat. The Dwarves and the Distillers were the opening bands. I thought The Distillers were a great match for the Celtic Punk theme the headliners have going. The Dwarves are a lot more hardcore, but they seemed to go over really well. The show ended really early because of the all-ages factor. After the gig the two of us went to the El Mo and got really stupid drunk. I woke up the next morning hung over like a bear, with a trail of my clothes leading from the front door to my bedroom. The Dwarves The Phoenix, Toronto Ontario: May 16 2000 The Rockit, Toronto Ontario: June 13 2003 Every once in a while I go through these intense withdrawals where I just have to hit a punk show or my brain will errupt. I was going through one of those the first time I saw these guys play, when they opened for The Dropkick Murphys. I was going through another one when they came back to Toronto, so of course I just had to drag as many people as I could to the gig. (I think that ended up being about two people.) The Rockit is a tiny nasty little venue with zero ventilation and about three different kinds of beer. It's laid out like a tall skinny box, there is a balcony that runs around the second floor so that you can look down on the band, hork loogies, whatever. There is also a clear area in front of the stage where you can bounce around like a lunatic if that's your pleasure. We caught the last couple of songs by the opening band The Heatskores. They were doing some punk/ska thing. They weren't bad, but they came across as being really young. They were followed by The Riptides and The Sinisters. I'd caught a little bit of the Sinisters set at NxNE that year, and they aren't bad. A little rough around the edges, but you know, it's a punk band. They have a decent-sized local following, so they were probably partially responsable for the fact that the venue was fucking packed that night. A friend of mine had been raving about Maximum RnR, so I was really looking forward to seeing them play. The do an aggressive mash-up of punk and rock that just whacks you over the head. They're also really good a self-promotion - I've seen tons of sings and posters for the band all over town, including one designed to look like a street sign. They also hold the record for women's bathroom grafitti in town. By the time The Dwarves hit the stage the place was packed. The second they hit the stage, the crowd went mad, moshing and throwing beer cans. The band fed right off the energy, playing like wild things. It was fantastic. Everybody who was there left drenched in sweat and beer. I'm always struck by just how distinctive LA punk is. I couldn't tell you what the quality is, but I really notice every time I see a band like The Dwarves or The Circle Jerks. It's just very different from the kind of punk that came out of New York or London. Or Toronto, for that matter. Last Updated December 29 2007.
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