MUSIC COORD AND LEO GO TO GRIFFINTOWN TO SEE EXODUS
Been since NECROT at Piranha Bar that I’ve seen a metal gig and at his mom’s invitation I took young Leo down to Griffintown to see the mighty EXODUS, along with HAVOK and CANDY at the Corona theater now named something else. What a beautiful venue, a 113 year old edifice with gilded columns, for some pure thrash attack on a weirdly muggy Monday November night.
CANDY is certainly not the name I’d pick for my plodding, LSD influenced metal band but hey I’m also not from Pittsburgh. These dudes look sharp in the press photos kinda east coast hardcore style – like they just jumped out of an early 90s skate vhs but here they were on stage looking like they’ve been living inside an emptied 2L coke-bottle bong for the last three years, not that there’s anything wrong with that. They played weird electronics between their crust-metal songs that sounded a bit like the beats your random roommate made on fruity loops back in 2001. Strange. Cool vocals. Never underestimate a tall lanky dude with long-ass hair to fully roar.
Never actually heard HAVOK despite knowing the tite logo. Denver thrash mainstays. The singer banged on about covid like it was April 2021 between songs and frankly the less I know about that dude’s views on covid the better. Nonetheless it was an awesome full blown thrash attack – they had the merch dude sitting in on bass cuz the usual baseman had a lower body injury as they say in hockey. I love how in metal there’s always a dude that can step in in no time’s notice and play the whole set exactly as it’s meant to be played.
Young Leo was definitely the youngest metal fan at this show, though not hard to be considering I was feeling like a youngling at this one…Montreal metal fans be 45 years old looking 78 but still acting 16. Leo finally got to stand IN FRONT of the enormously tall bearded dude drinking a pint-glass of gin and taking constant hoots off the vape-tech in time for EXODUS to hit the stage. They were amazing and they brought it old school style playing a lot of early joints, sounding like a paper shredder jamming overtop three bixies crashing into each other. EXODUS’s lead singer was a charmer and the band clearly loved Montreal (who don’t). They also managed to make a few digs at their former scene mates METALLICA. They played an epic hour plus set and the old-man music coordinator’s knees started to give out so had to drag Young Leo out of the pit and head back uptown to find his mom.
-M.C.
