Some 26-odd years ago, a group of teenage punks graduated high school and signed a record deal worth $3.5 million dollars. It was the largest deal ever signed by a Canadian band.
The unlikely Cinderella story is even more confusing given the then makeup of Sum 41: four childhood friends from Ajax who banded together in the late '90s, maintaining their schoolyard nicknames and performing stunts on mini trampolines in small-town venues in Ontario. The group — comprised of guitarist and vocalist Deryck Whibley, drummer Steve "Stevo" Jocz, guitarist Dave "Brownsound" Baksh, and bassist Jason "Cone" McCaslin — would go on to become one of the defining pop-punk bands of the next decade, releasing eight studio albums and multiple Billboard charting singles, touring relentlessly, and filming the whole thing on a crummy early-2000s camcorder.
Sum 41's final show at Calgary's Scotiabank Saddledome celebrated the band's graduation from their early skate punk roots to full-fledged, guitar-shredding adult rockstars. Complete with a musical retrospective of the band's expansive career, punctuated by recognizable hits "Fat Lip," "In Too Deep," "With Me" and "Summer," it was the ultimate sendoff to a group that lives in the fuzzy memories of early 2000s teenagers, punks and metalheads alike.
But the Tour of the Setting Sum was determined not to lose itself in the sunset of early aughts nostalgia. Performing plenty of material from their latest record, Heaven :x: Hell, frontman Deryck Whibley's powerful lyrics on themes of resilience exploded on stage, catapulting the packed house through the fire and flames for Sum's final sendoff. That record and its partner memoir, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, recounts the whole Sum 41 affair in vivid detail through the voice and perspective of its celebrity frontman. Steeped in controversy, Whibley's memoir also includes a series of bombshell allegations against the band's former manager and producer, Greig Nori of Treble Charger. Rising up against all odds is a theme that rings true for Sum 41, who, despite the cards stacked against them, have earned their place amongst the best of the best serving bite-sized, anthemic pop-punk.
Setting the tone for the evening was a heavy-hitting lineup of Canadian punk mainstays. BC rockers Gob, now a little longer in the tooth than they were a few decades ago, still got the floor crowd roaring and prepared to split skulls. Dutiful fans sporting T-shirts with a mashup of Gob and the cover of Does This Look Infected? emphasized the long-standing ties between the two bands.
"If there's one thing you're going to take away tonight, it's one of those fucking T-shirts!" singer-guitarist Theo Goutzinakis declared to the gleeful floor, ready to mosh. Those threads of connection run deep; Gob founder Tom Thacker pulled double-duty that evening, later returning to the stage to join Sum 41. He's been a touring guitarist with the band since Baksh's temporary departure in 2006, and officially joined them in 2009.
Youthful Toronto punks PUP were ready to unleash the hounds with a set that delivered fast-paced, high-energy guitars, gripping raw vocals and clear anti-establishment messaging. Despite their shit-kicker attitude, vocalist and guitarist Stefan Babcock seemed rightfully stoked to be playing live to a stadium show crowd.
"Motherfucking Saddledome, that's mental!" he smiled with canine teeth, addressing the crowd gleefully before moving right along into 2019's "Kids." PUP polished off their set with plenty of impressive on-stage antics, including behind-the-back guitar picking, crowd surfing and punk jumps. Guitarist Steve Sladkowski later exited the stage holding up a trans flag, a welcome show of allyship for a community that has struggled with a wave of anti-trans legislation in the province. It was a statement that positioned PUP firmly in the tradition of punk musicians as establishment agitators.
The familiar chords and lyrics of Green Day's "Basket Case" drew an eruption of singalongs from the crowd as they anxiously awaited the arrival of Sum. Pulling the puppet strings of their audience, the crew drew a black curtain across the stage. The grizzly guitar chords and familiar "Oi! Oi! Oi!" of AC/DC's "T.N.T." blasted throughout the stadium. At the end of the chorus, the music cut abruptly, then an ominous voice overtook the intercom. "When day becomes night / The ritual has begun / We hold up our salutes / To the setting Sum," the voice snarled in an intro reminiscent of Iron Maiden's theatrical power metal.
Deryck Whibley, clad in red sneakers and a Black Sabbath 1975 tour cutoff shirt, sprinted on stage. His bandmates followed suit, quickly launching into the ripping snare and pop-punk riffs of "Motivation." As Whibley moved energetically from stage left to right, confetti guns fired off into the crowd. His big smile, matched by his bandmates Brownsound and Cone, emphasized just how much fun Sum 41 have always managed to have together both on and off stage.
Does this Look Infected?'s "The Hell Song" was up next on the setlist, ushering singalongs that would continue for most songs performed throughout the evening. The band's attitude was jovial, light and grateful. Whibley repeatedly thanked fans, requesting that the lights be shone onto the crowd so he could see their faces, and referring to them as his Sum 41 family. His showmanship, reminiscent of Panic at the Disco! frontman Brendon Urie, was a product of an earlier time in pop-punk, when establishing familiarity with a fanbase could be the defining factor that would make or break a group's success. It was refreshing to see Whibley genuinely delight in waving to, smiling at and laughing along with his fans, his real talent for cultivating intimacy in a packed stadium on display.
Whibley still had plenty of kick left in him, and lots to say as the band continued strumming through hard-hitting singles "No Reason," "War" and "Underclass Hero." Launching into the contrasting polarity of 2024's Heaven :x: Hell, light pop-punk songs "Landmines" and "Dopamine" have a modern sound that highlight the band's ability to stay relevant in the contemporary music fray.
Selling out has never really been a Sum 41 thing, though. As the band matured, their music began to head in a heavier and more metal-leaning direction post 2016's 13 Voices. The shift accompanied the band's distancing from former collaborator Greig Nori, who's hand helped shape the group's early sound on All Killer No Filler, Does This Look Infected? and Chuck. Nori, "patron saint to troubled teens" (as the lyrics to a Treble Charger hit go), has made a career out of barnacling himself to younger talent beyond Sum 41 — his production credits with No Warning and Marianas Trench point to a penchant for producing nostalgic and youthful pop-punk sounds.
Although Whibley didn't explicitly mention Nori by name, his presence could be felt as Deryck performed the songs he wrestled with throughout his early career. After playing 2004's "Some Say," he launched into storytime about the beat-up, rusty red Yamaha he was strumming on stage.
"I brought this guitar because it's a very special guitar to me," he said wistfully. "I got this guitar when I was 17 years old, and I used this on all the early Sum 41 years — all the albums, all the touring. This was on the Half Hour of Power album. The All Killer, No Filler album. This guitar is what I used in the "Fat Lip" video shoot. The "In Too Deep" video. The "What We're All About" video... So you can imagine, it's pretty fucking special. Well, in 2003, some asshole stole this guitar from my fucking house!" Whibley was interrupted by a chorus of boos erupting from the audience before continuing.
"It was gone," he said sadly. "I thought I would never see it again. 20 years went by. I had no idea where it was. And one day, I said, 'Fuck it, you know what, I've got to try and find this thing,' so I did all this digging and found that it had been given away. It went down this whole line… Long story short, I just got this fucking guitar back a couple of months ago!" Whibley's Sum 41 family cheered him on, and an errant voice from the crowd shouted, "Fuck that guy!" The cry of defiance caught on like wildfire, burning through the stadium. Suddenly, the entire room was chanting "Fuck that guy!" in unison while Whibley and the band stifled laughter.
He paused, seeming to weigh his next words carefully. "Alright, you know what? I just put out a book about my life, it's called Walking Disaster, and this fucking guy — you can read all about him in this book, alright? He's in there." Whibley shook his head, then recovered with a glimmer in his eye. "But right now, let's get back to this beautiful moment we were having," he concluded. Although the story was brief, his words hung in the air, staining the rest of the set with new context.
Whibley and Dave Brownsound's love and mutual respect for metal was apparent in the second half of the show. They used the performance's midway point as an excuse to emphasize their respect for the genre by performing a truncated version of Slayer's "Raining Blood." Whibley continued to take recommendations from the crowd, delighting in a request for Metallica from an eager metalhead and encouraging Brownsound to play the guitar solo from "Master of Puppets." Before he finished speaking, Dave launched into the solo, shredding mercilessly and showcasing his guitar chops before Whibley insisted they "get back to Sum 41 business."
The back side of Heaven :x: Hell is the marriage of the band's wrestling pop-punk and metal identities, with Whibley's songwriting displaying a candid, hard-to-swallow look at the themes he explores further in his 2024 memoir Walking Disaster. A skeleton with glowing red eyes emerged from the stage as Whibley enthusiastically motioned for the crowd to form a circle pit. His lyrics were biting as he delivered the song with the raw passion that is startlingly clear on the red side of Heaven :x: Hell. "I don't believe that you have got any soul / You're just a breed of your own kind of alone," Whibley growled into the mic, his bandmates following up with a supportive "woah oh!"
Ever the agitator, Whibley continued with renewed enthusiasm: "No prayers from me, you see I'm not the one you think will / Just let it go and leave it all behind / You're dead to me and I don't even feel guilt / Just take a look, 'cause it's time for me to rise."
You can take the kid out of Ajax, but you can't take the teenage rebel from Whibley. Even on their last-ever tour, Sum 41 has plenty of fight left.