Only in Vancouver do individuals reply with a confused, “What?” while you announce that you simply’re going to a Skinny Puppy live performance.
The godfathers of business punk, who minimize their tooth in darkish Vancouver venues, by no means reached the heights of Nine Inch Nails—however they need to have.
To put together for the plunge again into Skinny Puppy’s sonic onslaught—greater than 35 years since my final one—I pored over my colleague Mike Usinger’s insightful tackle the band throughout a 2009 cease.
Back to the current, although: the night kicked off with opening band Lead into Gold, that includes former Ministry bassist Paul Barker. After their set, I occurred upon Barker on the Commodore’s higher bar, the place we mirrored on our first Skinny Puppy reveals.
He described his first try to see the long-lasting band in 1992: a harrowing story that went sideways because of “a pocket full of acid” and a “trip to the hospital.” I didn’t ask for particulars.
As the gang gathered on the ground, the primary beats of Skinny Puppy shattered the din of dialog. Gone have been the sharp boots, however the sea of leather-based and pleather pulsed with enthusiasm. There was as a lot grey as black scattered on the heads all through the gang.
A Skinny Puppy present, very like your first jazz album, is an amazing expertise during which you might be more likely to miss 95 per cent of what’s taking place. I selected to soak up the expertise from the sting of the stage, embracing the gonzo nature of all of it, rooted within the understanding that my ears would by no means forgive me.
The stage dynamics have been set as Nivek Ogre, shrouded in character, engaged in Spy vs. Spy fight towards a masked Nemesis. So it goes.
The dystopian setting unfolded as glimpses of an Ogre’s alien persona, full with fiendish head and piercing eyes, was subjected to quite a few horrors by the hands of his dreadlocked Nemesis. Skinny Puppy dialled up the fascist-state concern as Ogre’s character was repeatedly subjected to acts of torture with knives, cattle prods, and injections. Apparently, the band’s music was utilized in torture at Guantanamo Bay.
Video of Skinny Puppy play Dig It – Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC – Nov. 23, 2023
The spectacle was revealed intentionally, Ogre’s bodily stamina on full show as he navigated the intricate efficiency, powered by keyboards of cEvin Key.
A curious and conspicuous lab-coated conspirator lurked onstage all through the present, documenting the drama because it unfolded. Events took a dire flip as Ogre was subjected to a aware lobotomy, gore and inexperienced ooze pouring from his head including a visceral layer to the pageantry.
As the narrative unfolded, it appeared as if Ogre’s offspring emerged, and was not spared from the drama—a prescient picture of our pending bleak future. Amidst the chaos, lyrics screamed by, and readability was struck with “Seize the Time”.
Strapped to a chair after which hidden behind a hospital partition, Ogre confronted extra terrors, punctuated by the pounding assault of Justin Bennet’s drums and Matthew Seltzer’s raging guitars. “The Future is Black” echoes in my ears. It’s a darkish journey into the abyss.
The encore was no path to salvation, however slightly an absorption into “Assimilate” and a nostalgic launch-pad to the previous.
The crowd, in full frenzy, moshed with unrelenting vitality, guaranteeing sore our bodies within the morning. Ogre, shedding his alien character, broke the barrier and related with the gang, reminiscing about his favorite native haunts. The climax got here with an enormous ovation—a becoming tribute to those icons of the Vancouver industrial scene.
In the top, Skinny Puppy’s last Vancouver cease was a journey into the depths of their dystopian creativeness and a relative critique of our darkish future.
