Live shows are about breaking boundaries between the audience and the performer, Fucked Up’s frontman Damian Abraham once told me. This approach is the Toronto punk band’s essence. Despite growing mainstream acceptance Fucked Up continue booking small venues, sometimes playing two shows a night to meet the demand without sacrificing the intensity of performances.
Few bands today can match Fucked Up’s electrifying stage presence. North California’s Trash Talk is one of them. Unlike Abraham’s cuddly bear charisma, however, singer Lee Spielman’s energy is fed by misanthropy and violence. A break from the pre-packaged suburban angst of most hardcore acts, Trash Talk’s emotional intensity was truly compelling. For once, there was an element of real danger in the room – split foreheads, microphone slings, bodies flying head first into a sparse mosh pit.
Yet through the brutal self-exorcism came glimpses of the band’s fundamental humaneness, like Spielman’s blanket invitation to hang out in East London after the show. “They are great people and they are completely passionate [about] what they do,” Abraham told me. “That’s all you can ask from a band.”
Despite their close friendship with Trash Talk, Fucked Up are not the ones to be upstaged. Taking to the stage of the sold old Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, the band broke themselves in with a few rarities, slowly building up the tension. At ‘Crusades’ the storm broke – Abraham was in the crowd, shoving the mic into the mouths of screaming fans amidst an instantaneously lit mosh pit.
Bodies collided and flew into the walls of more timid onlookers; but there was no violence felt, no desire to hurt one another. For all its musical aggression, Fucked Up’s show is a positive experience.
As usual, Abraham firmly camped out in the audience, criss-crossing the venue and the bar itself. His larger-than-life persona made the rest of the group look like backing musicians, faithfully keeping tune on stage. It was a largely a one-man show, but the man was big enough to fit the shoes. Like a hot-wired rod, Abraham directed currents of energy around the room, spurring fans on in the sweaty heat with each song from the breakthrough ‘Chemistry of Common Life’ LP. A heavy mid-paced new track gave an indication of things to come.
A quick encore, a cover of Sex Pistols’ ‘Bodies’ and the show was over. Fucked Up cracked the chemical code of everyday life, bringing out some its best emotions: excitement, camaraderie and sincerity.
Words by Anatoly Kurmanaev
