Fucked Up x Fucked Up Or Close Encounters of the Fucked Up Kind

July 20, 2011
Fortune Sound Club
Vancouver, British Columbia

What good friends Fucked Up are to have played a free show for the proprietors of the Fortune Sound Club in Vancouver's Chinatown.

The RSVP-only/five-dollar-cover-after-11-pm show was scheduled to run from 9 pm to 2 am and feature a DJ and three bands, so I knew my friend Ben and I were going to have to spend a lot of time at the show waiting. The long waits weren't helped by the loudest pre-show music I'd ever heard (I attribute that to the fact that the speakers were serious dance club speakers). My ears had taken a pounding before the first band even came on.

As soon as that first band came on though, a "veteran" punk band from East Vancouver called the Strugglers, the crowd at the front of the stage instantly exploded into a mosh-pit, and I don't mean just a rowdy, pushy, energetic crowd: I mean guys with Mohawks and studded leather/denim jackets/vests beating the living shit out of each other, clawing, tearing and shoving like human wrecking balls. There was a difference between this moshiest of moshy crowds and the aforementioned tamer pushy crowds in which I've participated though: as rough as last night's Strugglers crowd was (and even during Fucked Up), it was very ... I think Ben put it best: respectful. The moshers always helped each other up and never dragged in anyone who didn't want to be a part of it. Bystanders around the pit's rim were, of course, subject to some damage, but they were always able to retreat. Anyway, what does one expect when standing in a human splash zone?

Not wanting to endure another set of loud-ass pre-show music or another opening band (Real Problems), Ben and I left the Fortune Sound Club for about an hour. We returned just in time to snag a good, slightly elevated spot to the left of the stage but not late enough to completely avoid the pre-Fucked Up in-house music.

By around 12:30, however, all of our waiting seemed irrelevant, as Fucked Up finally took the stage and proceeded to sonically rip us a new one. In a different, strictly verbal sense, Fucked Up also proceeded to rip Stephen Harper, the pigs, MTV, MuchMusic and Monster Energy Drink new ones, although Fucked Up also ripped the pigs in their song "Police."

Lead singer Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham probably spent more time in the audience and on the bar-counters than on stage. Anything fans wanted to do to or with Damian was possible: high-fives, hugs, piggyback rides, screaming or, if one's more reserved, singing along into his mic, pouring beer all over him, even putting your shirt on him and drumming your clammy hands on his hairy, sweaty, powder keg belly - all while the rest of the band tore it up on stage in a maelstrom of flying sweat, flying booze and flying bodies (a never-ending stream of audience members hurled themselves on top of one another, cannon-balling themselves s or simply stage-diving and crowd-surfing).

Another highlight came when bassist Sandy "Mustard Gas" Miranda called out to iconic Vancouver MuchMusic/radio personality and all-round all-knowing music guru Nardwuar the Human Serviette. Unfortunately, Nardwuar didn't seem to have been in the house that night.

Scenes such as the aforementioned (the best fan interaction I ever saw), a balanced mix of songs from all three of Fucked Up's albums, profuse thank-yous to random audience members and show organizers throughout the night and a crowd that was fucking into it made Fucked Up one of the best, most fun shows I ever saw. The only thing I would have done differently was gone down on the floor into the thick of it, not that everyone who wasn't on the floor didn't get a good taste of Damian Abraham. Just ask Ben or the several others who were lucky enough to have received a sopping-wet bear-hug from Damian or me or the several others who had the privilege of screaming in Damian's face and/or vice-versa.

My only problems with Fucked Up's show was that they played so loudly, even their catchiest, most melodic songs often became distorted and thus sounded much the same, and in Damian's fervour, he often missed many lyrics or stuck the mic in the faces of fans who didn't sing loudly enough.

My ears are buzzing like they've never buzzed before, but as Damian sings on "Under My Nose," "it's all been worth it." Now, I'm listening to Thurston Moore and Kurt Vile in preparation for tonight's show at the Rickshaw Theatre on the lowest enjoyable volume possible.