Boisterous punk band attempts to overcome casual Winnipeg repression
MELISSA HIEBERT STAFF
All those nasty things I said about punk being dead? ("Davey destroyed the punk scene," August 23.) I take it back. The Casualties proved once and for all that punk is still very much alive and rocking!
The ever so punk-tastic NYCbased band was touring to promote their latest album Under Attack, which was produced by fellow punkrawker Bill Stevenson, a former Black Flag drummer. When I entered The Venue last Friday night, I expected to be met by a sparsely populated crowd. Instead, I was shocked to find that the place was packed full of bodies, both punkers and non-punkers alike.
The opening act, Winnipeg’s own Dead City Disease, worked well to set the tone for the show. Forget hardcore, fuck screamo, these guys were nothing but pure punk, plain and simple. Coming off of their twoweek tour of Canada and the U.S., Dead City Disease ended off their trip with a bang. With solid vocals and a few squealing guitar solos thrown in for good measure, they definitely gave a good name to the Winnipeg punk scene.
Up next were the Wednesday Night Heroes, who burst onto stage with more energy than Richard Simmons on a meth binge. The singer was constantly jumping around, doing handstands and all the while pumping up the crowd with his infectious vivacity. Again, there was no disappointment there; Wednesday Night Heroes faithfully delivered the timeless punk sound that everyone had flocked from the forgotten corners of Winnipeg to see. Belting out songs like “Music for the People,” the Heroes had everyone interlocking arms and marching wildly around in a circle pit, a beautiful display of destructive togetherness, in true punk fashion.
The Casualties, though lacking some of the energy of their opening acts, came onto the stage with a casual coolness that can only come from years of stage experience. The band was formed in 1990, as the result of a bunch of misfits having nothing better to do. “We had nothing to do except play in a band and drink,” said Jorge, the lead singer. “And no one was playing the same kind of music we were.” Though the line-up of band members may have changed a couple of times over the years, the Casualties have definitely stuck true to their roots, playing songs with straightforward power chord progressions and simple lyrics.
“I could be insulting you, and you fuckers wouldn’t know the difference!” yelled Jorge, after letting out a spew of Spanish to the crowd of bewildered fans. The band then went into some of their classic tunes such as “Punk Rock Love” and the eloquently titled “Ugly Bastards,” often pointing the microphone towards the eager crowd, seeking out audience participation.
At one point, Jorge urged everyone to get up onstage and start a giant mosh pit, with the band members jamming out tunes right in the middle of it. He later told me it was because he thought the Winnipeg crowd was too tame, and that he wanted to see stuff get a little crazy. Unfortunately, bodyguards broke up the pit before anything got too out of hand.
The Casualties ended off the night with a few tracks from their latest album, and performed an encore at the request of enthusiastic fans pumped chock full of adrenaline. Maybe the concert wasn’t as crazy as the band members would have hoped, but it was definitely about as energetic as it gets here in Winnipeg. All in all, everyone seemed to leave the concert pumped up and satisfied, blown away by the Casualties’ magical way of taking simplistic chants and mediocre melodies and turning them into timeless punk classics.
