The Get Up Kids @ Fairmount Theatre, Montreal – 6th December 2015

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Upon arriving at Theatre Fairmount, you’d be forgiven for thinking a bomb had gone off inside, such is the smokiness of the entire place. Someone was charged with creating an atmosphere, and they didn’t cheap out on the dry ice! No need to worry about creating an atmosphere tonight though, because The Get Up Kids are FINALLY back in our fair city, after a 12-year absence (last seen opening for Dashboard Confessional in 2003), and the place is amped enough as it is! Pioneers of the emo scene in the late 90’s, their sound still appeals to a broader audience than you’d expect. Local ethereal shoe-gazers No Joy are spotted amongst the crowd; clearly, more than just aged Emo kids here tonight.

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Having missed the openers Rozwell Kid due to inaccurate set time projections, the first band I catch are Chicago’s Into It. Over It., the project of Evan Weiss. As soon as they start playing, they immediately sound like the kinda band you saw back when Emo was in its prime, musically reminiscent of Sunny Day Real Estate, but with the vocals of Desa (getting nostalgic just writing this!). Wikipedia informs that they are “considered one of the leading acts in the Emo revival scene of the 2010’s,” which sounds about right. A 45-minute set concludes with the slow-building Midnight: Carroll Street, exploding in a grande booming finale, and the crowd is warmed up nicely.

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The Get Up Kids arrive on stage to a rapturous welcome. Twelve years away clearly hasn’t dampened this city’s love for these guys, and the immediate apologies for being away so long goes a long way towards placating the less forgiving among us. Promises to play plenty of songs from “back in the day” are also gratefully received, before the unmistakable intro to Holiday backs up this promise, sparking a mass sing-a-long. This theme continues for every song of the set, although a few extra decibels are generated for anything played from the classic Something To Write Home About album. Out Of Reach begins with a solo acoustic guitar from frontman Matt Pryor in an almost subdued manner, but is sung back passionately by the crowd as if it was an anthem. Mass Pike then sparks some polite pogoing, though one stage-diver takes it upon himself to try and up the ante for the night. The rest of us in the front are not as obliging, however, as the crowd parts like the Red Sea, and he ends up simply jumping down from the stage, safely landing on his feet, in the most failed stage dive in history. This isn’t lost on the band, and especially Matt, who after finishing the song, laughs that this guy totally mis-read the room, and this show is more “Netflix and Chill” than “f**k s**t up.”

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Action, Valentine, and Forgive And Forget all swiftly follow from the afore-mentioned classic STWHA record, which is then followed by an undoubtedly inebriated guy in the crowd shouting “play a song we know.” At this point, everyone laughs, and Matt comments that if he didn’t know any songs up to this point, he probably isn’t going to know any at all tonight. Nonetheless, they play intros to Sweet Home Alabama and Smells Like Teen Spirit, received with even more laughs from the crowd. Album closer I’ll Catch You is also the set closer here, before the band return for a 3-song encore of Close To You (yes, a cover of The Cure), an old-school punk song called Beer, and 10 Minutes. Matt encourages all that although we were “Netflix and Chill” tonight, we should go crazy for that last song, and everyone duly obliges. The band promises to come back at least every 7 years from this point on (tongue-in-cheek, no doubt), instead of the 12 we had to wait last time. On the strength of tonight’s show, even 7 years would be too long.

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Set list
Coming Clean
Dottie
Stay Gold
Lowercase
Woodson
Out Of Reach
Mass Pike
Action
Valentine
Forgive And Forget
No Love
KS
Red Letter Day
Amy
I’ll Catch You

Close To You (The Cure)
Beer
10 Minutes

Review & photos – Simon Williams

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