Fucked Up Still Like Bleeding, Climbing

Phoenix Concert Theatre

Toronto, ON

on Jul 16 2009

Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

07/17/2009 12:31pm

At the end of Fucked Up's show at Toronto's Wrongbar in May 2008, broken beer bottles littered the wooden floor and the bar looked completely wrecked from the mayhem that had occurred.

A lot's changed for Fucked Up since then: they signed to Matador, released the Polaris Music Prize short listed The Chemistry Of Common Life, have toured the world and vocalist Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham and his wife had a baby. Had their live show also evolved?

Toronto's Teen Anger opened things up, and out of all the bands on Thursday night's bill, their music is probably the most traditional punk. It borrows from the MC5 and the Ramones. Their singer twitches like Ian Curtis, though, and I could swear one of their songs has a bassline that cribs the main riff from The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army." While they were an enjoyable listen, they might be better in a smaller club.

Vivian Girls are practically a different band compared to the one who opened for TV On The Radio at the same venue in July 2008. From the get-go, their sound was tighter, they had greater command over their instruments, singer/guitarist Cassie Ramone's voice has greatly improved and nobody played out of time.

The crowd loved these three ladies' brand of punky indie rock mixed with shoegaze vocals, and Ramone kindly did her best to drench their ears in a wall of feedback when she started banging and screeching her guitar on the stage.

Ramone, bassist/singer Kickball Katy and drummer/vocalist Frankie Rose still have a bit of learning to do, though, since they still haven't quite learned how to fully utilize a stage. Nonetheless, they're definitely ones to watch and should make waves with sophomore album Everything Goes Wrong when it comes out in September.

Women seemed a bit of an odd mix to add to this bill, since their experimental rock seems hardly punk, musically speaking. But they proved their audience wrong after the first few opening songs. Women's music may not be traditional punk, but the idea behind it — eschewing traditional song structures in favour of experimentation and noise — is the very ethos of punk because it gives the finger to convention.

Singer/guitarist Patrick Flegel, bassist Matthew Flegel, guitarist Christopher Reimer and Michael Wallace played a good set, and the highlight was self-titled album opener "Black Rice," but they barely moved on stage.

Abraham accidentally cut a chunk out of his thumb while Fucked Up were in Serbia a few days ago (and lost "a pint of blood," according to his blog). He said he was still hurting when Fucked Up came on stage, but he didn't show it. The guy has a habit of doing stupid things that leave him bleeding (beer bottles to the skull, anyone?), so you have to figure.

Abraham, guitarists Mike "10,000 Marbles" Haliechuk, Josh "Concentration Camp" Zucker, Ben "Young Governor" Cook, bassist Sandy Miranda and drummer Jonah "Mr. Jo" Falco launched straight into The Chemistry Of Common Life opener "Son The Father" before transitioning seamlessly into "Magic Word."

Sebastien Grainger, who had been hanging around with Abraham and the Fucked Up vocalist's son, Holden (in a snuggly on Abraham's stomach), outside the Phoenix before the show, then made a surprise appearance for "Twice Born." Grainger immediately ripped off his shirt and Abraham made the crowd go nuts when he stuck his tongue out and gave Grainger's stomach and chest one huge lick upwards.

Grainger shrieked out the song's chorus in falsetto while Abraham growled his way through it, and after Grainger had left the stage, Abraham dove into the crowd for "Black Albino Bones." He spent that song and the next wandering around in the crowd before he hopped back up on stage.

That wasn't to be the only mayhem of the night, though. Abraham then decided to scale the wall of the right side of the stage and ended up in the DJ booth upside down with his legs danging out the top. Miranda looked very confused and kept glancing up at him as if she was trying to figure out just what the hell he was doing.

He came back down and his wife, Lauren, made a brief appearance with little Holden. Abraham eventually made his way back into the audience during "Crooked Head" and "Police" before the band finished their set with "Crusades" and a two-song encore.

By the end of the night, the entire audience seemed sweaty and breathless. It would have been easy for Fucked Up to let a high stage and playing such a cavernous (if you can call the Phoenix that) venue get in the way of their act, which used to be better suited to smaller clubs.

But they've progressed beyond that (Glastonbury, anyone?), mastered the art of using a stage and playing live, and Abraham has such a huge personality these things will never get in his way anyway.

You have to wonder: Can the rest of the Polaris short listers really put on a show like this?

To view more of Zack Vitiello's photos from this show, click here.