LIVE REVIEW: FUCKED UP FUCK UP MONTREAL

On a chilly Saturday night in Montreal, hardcore heroes Fucked Up hit the stage as the headliners of the M for Montreal festival. Their spirited, over-the-top performance went over about as well as a stink bomb. Over the previous three days, 27 Canadian indie rock bands had been showing off their wares to amped locals and an international consortium of industry types (including this Revolver reporter, obviously). Fucked Up, was the last band to play all weekend and concluded the festivities in a classic punk-rock fashion—by totally clearing the room.

Photo by Alexandre Bédard

The club, Metropolis, holds about 2,300 people and was packed to the gills for Saturday night’s eclectic lineup, with no clear “draw” and no enthusiasm lost for any of the performers. Former Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur and her recent dollop of Cave In-style space rock got a warm hometown greeting. Earnest art-dance crew Malajube got a joyous response. Future incredibly-famous-band-that-will-annoy-the-shit-out-of-you Champion & ses G-Strings turned the whole place into a fuggin’ moon bounce with relentlessly pogoing, crowd-surfing, and bros sitting on the shoulders of other bros—an appropriately wild reception to a band that feels like techno Andrew W.K. Fucked Up started their performance with a video of them receiving the 2009 Polaris Music Prize, an award for Canadian musical achievement that traditionally goes to a snoozy indie rock band. Would they be greeted with the same warm reception in Montreal?

Photo by Alexandre Bédard

Not a chance. Opening with their seven-minute art-sludge opus “The Chemistry of Common Life,” they were a total blur of sound, broken only by the bark of heavyset, hirsute singer Damian Abraham. The audience began a slow trickle out into the crisp Canadian air—first shedding the indifferent, then the tired, then the remotely curious—until you could draw a line from the back of the club to the front of the stage. A club that held 2,000 people was reduced to the intimate vibe of a basement show.

“Us coming after DJ Champion is like the keg running dry at a party,” Abraham said. “It’s like the cops showing up. It’s like your parents coming home. We’re gonna ruin the party.”

Revolver saw the same phenomenon when Dillinger Escape Plan closed out the indie-centric PLUG Awards in New York, circa 2005—and we do have to say watching a crowd of wusses tear out of a club with their hands over their ears is a great reminder of why we love heavy music. Also, we can say with no uncertainty that the departing masses missed a hell of a show.

The whole club became Abraham’s stage, as he just barreled up and down the empty floor, shirtless and sweaty as anything, running through what was left of the crowd. At a proper American hardcore show, he would have been swarmed, but the remaining audience—including a healthy pocket of photogs—left him a good three feet of elbow room to play and freak out.

Here is an incomplete log of Abraham’s antics:

• Bashing the microphone into his skull.
• Giving dudes piggyback rides.
• Screaming at the bar.
• Wrapping the mic cord around his neck like a leash, or around his face like a mummy.
• Just laying face down on the ground while everyone stands around confused.
• Hugs galore.
• Sneaking up on some dude who’s intently watching the rest of the band members and scaring him.
• Sneaking up behind some girl who’s talking to her friends and scaring her.
• Wearing a plastic cup like a unicorn horn.
• Getting pantsed by some guy in a hoodie—then tracking him down, tackling him, and removing his pants and underwear in retaliation.

Fucked Up basically tore Montreal a new one. And Montreal didn’t stick around to see it. CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN

Photo by Alexandre Bédard

Related content:
Fucked Up recall their most fucked up concerts