The Walleye Magazine

Hawks Must Fly, Road Dogs Must Run

Cancer Bats Return to Black Pirates Pub

Review by Justin Allec, Photos by Lucas Augustyn

The days of staying home seem to be over. Despite the early hour and the blizzard warning, the crowds came out to Black Pirates Pub on April 13 as they hosted their first touring act in more than two years. A night with Toronto’s Cancer Bats is always a good time, but the pub filled up early for local post-hardcore heroes Femur. The trio quickly thundered through their set and provoked the first vicious mosh pit of the night. Next up, Winnipeg’s Vagina Witchcraft smashed their way through a druggedout set of songs heavy on raging psychedelia. The crowd appreciated it, but time for the main event!

With a new album called Psychic Jailbreak only days away, the Cancer Bats decided to begin their latest cross-country trek in our fair city… not that they really felt they had a choice. “Can you imagine if we had started in Winnipeg?” singer Liam Cormier polled the packed crowd after the first sweaty batch of songs. “You’d see our van drive by and be like: get them!” It's funny because it's true: after two years of shuttered stages, we’re ready for some fun. And few bands can bring it like the Cancer Bats.

Would it be wrong to call the Bats Canada’s premier hardcore punk band? They’re nearing their second decade together and have so many releases now that they barely play anything from the first album. I have a hard time thinking of any other outfit that achieves this balance of sonic destruction and crowd fanaticism—a perfect marriage of scuzzy punk, hardcore stompers, shout-along choruses, and a willingness to get physical. From the first notes of opener “Psychic Jailbreak” the crowd was elemental, a surging mass of hurled bodies, sprayed beer, and hair-whipped sweat that the band egged on with each thrashy riff. A few new songs were sprinkled among the stone-cold classics, but everything the Bats pulled out for the crowd increased the intensity.

If we all looked a little greyer and fatter than the last time we gathered, the band’s seen even more drastic changes. Shortly after the pandemic started, founding guitarist Scott Middleton announced that he would be leaving the band. Rather than let this sink the whole endeavour, remaining members Cormier, bassist Jaye Schwarzer, and drummer Mike Peters reached out to friends and family. While quarantined they produced and released an “unplugged” concert of their hits with a huge cast, including local singersongwriter Nick Sherman as an unofficial Bat. Taking Black Pirates’ tiny stage this time, the core trio were joined by new guitarist Stevis Harrison, lately of L.A.’s Fever 333. Harrison was an absolute demon on stage, and his dynamic performance—and easy mastery of the Bats sludgy sound—makes me eager to see what this new version of the band can do.

All good things must come to an end, and the Bats set had to wrap up unexpectedly after Schwarzer’s bass exploded in the opening section of their cover of “Sabotage,” their second-to-last song. Undeterred, Schwarzer ditched his instrument and grabbed a second microphone to help Cormier belt out the Beastie Boys track before crowd-surfing to the end. With another April blizzard just starting as people reluctantly left the pub, it still felt like a fitting end to the night and, hopefully, the beginning of a season of touring bands.

“I have a hard time thinking of any other outfit that achieves this balance of sonic destruction and crowd fanaticism.“

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2022-05-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

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