HPX Day#5: Saturday Oct 22nd 2011 - Isaac & Tiff

 

Demon's Claw @ Gus' Pub
w/ The Graboids, Skip Jensen & Outtacontroller
HPX 2011

Show Overview & Video by Isaac Thompson/ Video & Photos by Tiffany Naugler

Saturday at Gus’ Pub- With exhaustion looming over the entire city, the Pop Explosion sang its final battle cry for another year. There was so much going on Saturday night that it seemed like most folks were hopping from one show to another. Tiff and I divided our time between Gus’ Pub and the North Street Church, where fellow Noisographer Stan was checking out the Murder by Death show.

Tiff started off the night at Gus. There seemed to be some confusion as to when the show would actually start, so she headed to The North Street Church.

Audrey & The Agents played an energetic set to a crowd of... 20 people? It was kind of sad, but regardless - the room probably could have been empty and these guys would have still given it their all!






Rituals was now ready to go at Gus'
This was Tiff's favorite band of the whole night. Loud rock with just enough effects and pedal tweaks to keep ones interest.






The first band we both caught at Gus’ was Halifax’s punk weirdoes The Graboids (named after the greatest Kevin Bacon movie known to man). Even though the bar was far from packed, the Graboids put on the biggest spectacle I saw the entire festival. Lead Graboid, Adrian was donned in a Mexican wrestling mask and spent much of the set taunting the audience until he got into a full out wrestling match with one unruly audience member. The wrestling match spilled into the VLT room and even the bathroom, where a toilet seat was removed and used as a weapon. The entire time this wrestling match ensued (which was a good 15 minutes at least) The band played and Adrian continued to sing. Luckily the was a professional referee (Dale, from No Flyers Please)  in the audience to make sure there was no dirty fighting.







Outtacontroller played next, and unlike Murder By Death, they are a band who’s name tells you exactly what they sound like. Pure outta control aggressive loudness.





After checking out Murder by Deaths set to see what all the fuss was about I arrived back at Gus’ in time to catch one or two songs by Montreal rocker Skip Jensen. What I heard of the set I liked. The songs were punky and raw.




Demon’s Claws closed the show and again, here’s a band whose name and sound don’t really have much in common. These guys play an almost bluesy indie rock with lots of guitar riffs and a lead singer with an astounding poncho.





By the time the Pop Explosion had ended I was so overcome with the exhaustion of seeing approximately 78 thousand bands in five days that I passed out for a day and a half.