My sister and her husband Mark are coming home for the holidays in less than 3 weeks. They spent a good chunk of the summer in Canada and everyone has awaited their upcoming arrival. I'm looking forward to the Holidays, exams are done this Wednesday and its smooth sailing for the few weeks after.
Doors opened at 8:30pm and as I arrived tons of people were ALREADY getting there before the show had started. This came to a surprise for me considering a lot of kids were there to see Rival Mob, the last band on the bill. At 9:30pm the ball started to get rolling, Planet Danger took the stage and ripped the crowd a new one. These guys are from Barrie and have that Heavy Hardcore straight edge sound to a science, it was awesome to see a local band get so much attention without any official releases. Overpower were up next, Toronto Oi Hardcore is the most accurate description. They opened there set with Ready To Fight by Negative Approach, proceeding the rest of the night with regular material from over the past couple years. Aside from calling out some girl photographer to get the fuck off the stage, they were really entertaining. This night started getting pretty diverse, you had punks and skins, hardcore kids from Montreal, Buffalo and all over Ontario in a 5 hour driving radius. Stick Together was up next and my stomach pounded with excitement.
Stick Together are past and present members of War Hungry and Bad Seed, they hail from Wilkes Barres and play punchy straight edge hardcore with a modern twist. With only a demo out, and not even a band for a year, they fucked the stage up. They did tracks off their demo, upcoming 7” and a song on a soon to be Reaper Records compilation. Kids went fucking mental; Hoodrack was jumping in and out of the crowd like a fucking beach ball. Stick Together even covered SSD’s “Glue” and a Breakdown track. I want to say “What It Is.” The last song, one of the PA monitors chain snapped and 100 pounds of equipment proceeded dangling above kids in the front center.
The heavily anticipated, Free Spirit, was up next and I had been craving to see these guys since last years Fucked Up’s Halloween Weekend. Since that time Free Spirit has released a brand new EP on Triple B/ Lockin’ Out records that is simply diabolical. It has a more raw sound then their demo and even more anthems. The set started with Selfish and instantaneously, bodies were flying from wall to wall. I failed to mention Rancho Relaxo is a SMALL venue for 100-200 people, so everything was intensified. Gil of Free Spirit gave his whole heart to that set and you could just tell he was having the time of his life. They ended their set with Be Yourself and everybody took part in this one. The reaction was so immense they decided to throw in Straight Ahead’s “Straight Ahead”, but the drummer forgot the song half way but picked up shortly after.
Rival Mob was the 5th and final band to play and like always put on a great performance and had just as great a reaction then the past 2 times I’ve seen them. Rival Mob opened with Hardcore for Hardcore and finished with Hardcore for Hardcore, it was pretty cool because I felt like each time was different from the other. I left the venue confident that this was the show of the year. It was a vital show in current Toronto hardcore history. Stuck in The City put this show together and other friends, they went above and beyond as usual and Toronto is grateful to have such good show promoters.
