In this age of belt-tightening, penny-scrounging and self-sacrifice, it's nice to see a feisty group of young people willing and able to bring their tunes on an often gruelling cross-country trek. Summoning a new spirit of pure, unabashed rock'n'roll, the intrepid trio of modern-day warriors embodied in Lethbridge, AB's the Moby Dicks, Vancouver's Needles // Pins (pictured) and Montreal's Ultrathin banded together in a violent, whirling bacchanal of punk rock purity to baptize the faithful into a new church of D.I.Y. divinity.
First up, the Moby Dicks invited the crowd to take a step forward and met them in the middle with their gleefully minimal hot-dog-party punk. For these soldiers of scuzz, fun was paramount, as they fired off their shout-along post-modern rave-ups. With the band's Joel Butler pounding out a primal beat, the Dicks careened head on into gunk punk immortality.
Next, the lovely and talented Needles // Pins put their extra punctuation aside to grind out some beach-ready, dance-party garage rock. Anchored by the sweet and steady drumming of a young lady known to the world only as Macey, Needles // Pins bopped till they dropped, or at least till they ran out of numbers to satiate the salivating crowd, plying a hot set of potential singles (including a fantastic cover of Teenage Head's immortal "Picture My Face") with wide smiles and manic energy.
Last up were Montreal's bottom-end bong rock heroes Ultrathin. Armed with an arsenal of pedals, the group seemed to alchemize heavy riffs before our very eyes, evoking a simultaneous unholy marriage of Hawkind and Jerry's Kids. Each song seemed to build on what had come before and, with ear-splitting aplomb, unceremoniously attacked the faithful with one monstrous, face-melting epic after another. For lack of a gentler term, Ultrathin ruled.
First up, the Moby Dicks invited the crowd to take a step forward and met them in the middle with their gleefully minimal hot-dog-party punk. For these soldiers of scuzz, fun was paramount, as they fired off their shout-along post-modern rave-ups. With the band's Joel Butler pounding out a primal beat, the Dicks careened head on into gunk punk immortality.
Next, the lovely and talented Needles // Pins put their extra punctuation aside to grind out some beach-ready, dance-party garage rock. Anchored by the sweet and steady drumming of a young lady known to the world only as Macey, Needles // Pins bopped till they dropped, or at least till they ran out of numbers to satiate the salivating crowd, plying a hot set of potential singles (including a fantastic cover of Teenage Head's immortal "Picture My Face") with wide smiles and manic energy.
Last up were Montreal's bottom-end bong rock heroes Ultrathin. Armed with an arsenal of pedals, the group seemed to alchemize heavy riffs before our very eyes, evoking a simultaneous unholy marriage of Hawkind and Jerry's Kids. Each song seemed to build on what had come before and, with ear-splitting aplomb, unceremoniously attacked the faithful with one monstrous, face-melting epic after another. For lack of a gentler term, Ultrathin ruled.
