{"id":5234,"date":"2012-12-03T05:50:21","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T13:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=5234"},"modified":"2012-12-03T16:40:35","modified_gmt":"2012-12-04T00:40:35","slug":"canadian-punk-vets-propagandhi-slay-edmonton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/12\/03\/canadian-punk-vets-propagandhi-slay-edmonton\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Canadian punk vets Propagandhi slay Edmonton"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Because we tend to think that Propagandhi are the most important Canadian band of our time and because the last time they played Victoria was the early ’90s, we got a comrade one province over to head out and write about their recent concert there. -ed]<\/p>\n

One of my favourite concert memories of all time was at a Propagandhi show in Edmonton, and it didn\u2019t even have to do with the Canadian punk\/hardcore vets\u2019 former penchant for Nazi-baiting or angry stage banter. It had to do with a four-year-old.<\/p>\n

At the band\u2019s show in 2009, two young parents had, strangely enough, brought their child, who spent the entire time during the three opening acts furiously running in nonstop circles on the floor in Edmonton\u2019s Starlite Room with disproportionately large protective headphones. Just before Propagandhi took the stage, his parents sat their son on the stage to protect him from the madness. As the band tore through \u201cSupporting Caste\u201d <\/em>to start <\/em>and the mosh engaged, the munchkin stood up and flashed the devil horns right in front of lead singer\/guitarist Chris Hannah, who ended the song with \u201cThis kid fucking rocks!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Propagandhi finish their 2012 "western Canada" tour in Banff on December 3. Grrrrrrrr (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unfortunately, there were no entertaining children onstage this time at the Starlite Room; regardless,\u00a0Propagandhi has a habit of never disappointing. Edmonton-based Slates opened the night with some fittingly melodic and rootsy punk, followed by Vancouver\u2019s The Rebel Spell, who harkened back to the anthem thrashing of \u201880s hardcore with plenty of satisfying \u201cWhoa-oh!\u2019 calls to charge the audience.<\/p>\n

As the headliners took the stage, the familiar voices of Ron MacLean and Don Cherry yelling at each other came over the PA\u2014making it the only time anyone will likely hear their bickering this year\u2014as the band broke into \u201cDear Coach\u2019s Corner,\u201d sending arms in the crowd of tattoos, Mohawks, and toques shooting skyward.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, for a group touring on their new album, Propagandhi opened with a few old standards. But in what was a two-hour set, the guys from Winnipeg would play almost all of Failed States<\/em>, their recently released sixth full-length, mixed pretty evenly with favourites from their snottier skate-punk days.<\/p>\n

One noticeable change from previous shows was a decrease in the enjoyable banter between songs\u2014a sign of a more mature and refined Propagandhi. But they still made room for some welcome political sloganeering, dedicating \u201cFuck the Border\u201d to federal minister of citizenship, immigration, and multiculturalism Jason Kenney, and inserting a \u201cdream sequence\u201d by drummer Jord Samolesky into \u201cThings I Like,\u201d which replaced the First Nations spoken word piece heard on the album with some railing against oil companies like Enbridge in support of Canada\u2019s Indigenous populations.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, the band\u2019s characteristic humour was also still evident, as Hannah told the crowd during \u201cBack to the Motor League\u201d that if they didn\u2019t know what to do during this song\u2014fist-pump during the breakdown\u2014then \u201cyou\u2019re just a completely worthless piece of shit.\u201d While I was slightly distracted during the final encore song of \u201cStick the Fucking Flag Up Your Goddamn Ass, You Skinhead Creep\u201d by a bleeding man, it was perhaps a fitting end to the concert. From a kid with his fist in the air to a guy with his fist covered in blood, Propagandhi shows never fail to feature some unscripted moments that exemplify punk rock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Because we tend to think that Propagandhi are the most important Canadian band of our time and because the last time they played Victoria was the early ’90s, we got a comrade one province over to head out and write about their recent concert there. -ed] One of my favourite concert memories of all time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5234"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5241,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234\/revisions\/5241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}