Despite the presence of a Backstreet Boy playing just a few blocks up the street at the same time (see our Nick Carter review here), rising Canadian punks PUP managed to pack every corner of a sold out Lucky Bar on November 22nd.
Opening bands Chastity (Ontario) and Meat Wave (Chicago) did their very best to get Lucky Bar primed and prepped for PUP’s rowdy set. Chastity showed their mellower side, with frontman Brandon Williams wandering down from the stage into the crowd mid-set. Meat Wave were high energy from start to finish, bouncing, flailing and yelling all across the stage.
From the opening notes of Guilt Trip, followed by Reservoir, PUP had the crowd under their trance. Mosh pits and crowd surfers were abundant throughout the entire set, coming to a climax during If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will near the end of the show with tens of audience members climbing on stage and immediately diving off. Other standount tracks included Dark Days and DVP.
PUP spent a good chunk of time returning all sorts of belongings to audience members, including shoes and even a pair of glasses.
It’s an unwritten rule that if someone falls in the mosh pit, you pick them right back up. Unfortunately, there were a few extra rowdy crowd members throwing people around and using a little more force than necessary. This resulted in PUP’s vocalist Stefan Babcock calling these audience members out, and asking them to be more respectful, followed by a grin and a claim of “90% of you are awesome!”
You’d be hard pressed to find a harder working band than PUP in the Canadian (and international) music scene right now. These guys have been on the rise for a while and, with their latest release, the full-length album The Dream Is Over, it’s evident that these guys aren’t stopping any time soon. It’s virtually impossible to match their stage presence, passion and energy. For those who picked pop sensation Nick Carter instead of PUP on this night… you may have missed out.
