As I arrived at The Devil’s Cellar, the first thought that crossed my mind as I surveyed the crowd was that everyone looked so young. Was I going to feel like a grumpy old curmudgeon the whole evening? As the show wouldn’t be starting for awhile, I sat in the bar upstairs listening to the sounds of Celine Dion and ’90s dance hits while drinking beer out of a plastic cup. However, as soon as openers Direct Approach got things started, I felt like things would turn out alright and realized that for a show like this, you need a bit of youthful energy.
“So how do you guys like this place? I kind of fucking hate it.” So said Dope Body singer Andrew Laumann a few songs into their set in reference to the venue. Perhaps he was being a bit harsh and his opinion may have been coloured by the band’s troubles crossing the border earlier in the day, but he may have a bit of a point. While I did kind of like the place, The Devil’s Cellar is kind of a weird place, located in the basement of a bar and decorated with pentagrams, skulls, and other metal/punk/horror movie accoutrements and in a part of the city not necessarily known for live shows.
Despite his border-related bad mood and possible dislike of the venue, Laumann and his bandmates still ploughed forward with a high energy set punctuated by his intense vocals and an array of great effects laden riffs. At times they came across like Rage Against The Machine fronted by a young Henry Rollins, but more often they channeled a Jesus Lizard level of abrasive weirdness. And just to be clear, in this case abrasive and weird are very good things.