aka "Rock and Roll isn't Dead in Toronto" :)
I last saw Lullabye Arkestra about two years ago, and since then they've cut down on the random, improvisatory noise and screaming and have turned into one hell of a pseudo-hardcore band.
Following them was Green Day. Oh, I mean The Downbelows.
Cuff the Duke offered a brief alt-country comedown from the more aggressive sounds of the bands preceeding them. Then they turned into a noise-prog band complete with bowed electric guitar and sounded 100X better for it.
Guitar Wolf's entrance music is the sound of a chainsaw on top of the first few tracks of The Ramones "Rocket To Russia". And that's Guitar Wolf in a nutshell. It all makes perfect sense now -- they are a duplicate version of the Ramones, minus the amphetamines and plus a few steroid shots. The "1 2 3 4!" intros, the leather jackets and sunglasses, each song sounding identical to all the others -- it's all there. Between all their amps approaching the legal distortion limits, barely a pause or volume reduction in the space between songs, the unrelenting accelerated tempos, and manic vigour of the band members, this is the most intense show of its kind I've seen since a Mayhem gig nearly four years ago.
More thoughts:
At one point, the guitarist scaled the speaker stack situated a few feet beyond stage left and leaped from it -- with guitar in hand -- to the stage below. It was reminiscent of Sting flying clothesline on Cactus Jack at Beach Blast 1992, in which he leaped from the top turnbuckle at one corner of the ring to the entrance ramp. Although Guitar Wolf's leap was more insane due to the low ceiling, the guitar/cargo, and more dangerous obstacles that needed to be avoided upon landing (stairs, drums, monitors, etc. And besides, Cactus Jack took almost all of the truly crazy risks in that match).
The encores were superfluous. When I saw Mayhem, they played like nuts for fifty minutes and we never saw them again. There's a limit to how much the performers can give and how much the audience can take when the music is so intense. Once Guitar Wolf had given us an hour of sweat and guts -- they should have never been seen again. In truth, they should probably play twenty minute sets like the Mary Chain used to. Sure, the Mary Chain became more accomplished songwriters and performers and chose to move on from that phase, but Guitar Wolf's whole shtick hinges on never growing out of that phase.
Playing with that much intensity goes a long way toward cancelling their reliance on rock and roll cliches (leather, Dionysian horns, screaming "ROCK AND ROLL" a lot, etc.).
During the intro to a cover of "Summertime Blues", Drum Wolf decided to comb his hair. I can't recall ever seeing a drummer comb his hair back during a song. Of course, his bass drum work continued throughout his grooming break. This was an impeccably cool moment.
During the last song of the main set, they dragged a guy from the audience up on stage. Guitar Wolf handed him the guitar and encouraged him to play it. The guy was clearly a nonplayer and was just goofing off running his hands everywhere along the guitar. And most of the time, the sound that came out was nearly indistinguishable from Guitar Wolf's playing. Granted, me and Mariah Carey would sound very similar if you filtered both of our voices through that much distortion. But hearing a complete neophyte play on this one song made me wonder whether Guitar Wolf are no-talent poseurs or dextrous geniuses who are somehow able to pull off seemingly basic tricks so convincingly. I'm 90% certain it's the latter.
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