Dear Evangeline, PERRA, Courage Kills, and Buff Live at The Rock Shop in YYC
Photo credit: Saania Jamal - Dear Evangeline
The sidewalk outside The Rock Shop in Kensington is full. Scattered smoking and chatting. A flat-grey humidity lingers on the skin; if I close my eyes I feel like I’m in Vancouver. Calgary’s Courage Kills has just wrapped up their second ever set, and the high-voltage energy they conjured inside the store now disperses onto the street with each busy swing of the front door. I’m overhearing that it’s hard to believe the band just recently formed.
Photo credit: Saania Jamal - Courage Kills
Back inside, PERRA, Calgary’s bilingual art punk/riot grrrl femme band, is growling—that is, they’re doing a sound check of their sampled audio of an angry dog. It’s a taste of what’s to come later; they start their set with a low-voiced spoken section in Spanish (not a surprise to those who know that “perra” is Spanish for “female dog”, aka, “bitch”). Drawn in, the crowd is along for the ride as the band controls the pace, changing their expression of energy at will. Moments of heavily-distorted grunge guitar tones and angsty shouting alternate freely with catchy upbeat melodies and playfully wry lyrics; they call attention to the mansplaining male musician trope, scoffing “blah blah blah” and “do you want to show me your pedal board, does it make you hard?”, with an attitude that reminds me a little of Wet Leg’s “I know all too well just what you’re like / I don’t want your love, I just want to fight”. Direct and unabashed, PERRA is equally unafraid of a fight.
Photo credit: Saania Jamal - PERRA
Tonight’s assignment is going to plan: favour the raw and real over any polished alternatives. And as the venue warms with body heat, the energy also climbs. It’s the forgivable kind of clammy air that seems excusable while you’re too busy living in the moment to really care. The room is split neatly in two: I’m on the periphery of the crowd in an electrically fluorescent area near the merch tables, feeling like I’m at the dentist (in a way that’s somehow enjoyable), but most people are huddled beneath the opposing mellow glow of string lights that traverse above the stage.
Buff, from Brampton, Ontario, features a more old-school metal sound, and quickly sends the crowd into frenzied jumping and thrashing. The band’s lead singer (and rhythm guitarist) makes use of a vocal delay pedal, especially influential in his various punk-esque “huh” and “woah” interjections. The band’s bassist is on double duty, in turns adding a femme vocal delay layer to the performance. Together, the effect is an interesting touch of modernity (and trippiness) to the band’s more classic guitar tones. Another departure from old-school style comes from the prog-inspired time changes and punchy back-and-forth between drums and bass. All this, without compromising the momentum of the set; one song transforms into the next through blooming tuning transitions. The room is steeped in a paradoxically gentle droning of guitar feedback that seeps through the monitors.
Photo credit: Saania Jamal - BUFF
After a final intermission, Dear Evangeline, also from Brampton, takes the stage. Saania (who’s been dodging elbows in the mosh to photograph the night) points out an overlap of musicians cast between Buff and Dear Evangeline, which we later confirm with the bands themselves. They even share a permanent member. And in terms of practicality, the move is a no-brainer; both bands are from the same city and embarked together on a cross-Canada tour.
It’s immediately apparent that fans — many already wearing the band’s periwinkle hoodie with its vine-covered, creeping black emblem — still have plenty of energy in store for their headliner. They’re also politely unfazed by the lead vocalist’s admission that she’d nearly lost her voice last night after the show in Edmonton. For a lead vocalist responsible for screaming for a whole set, she’s also pretty casual about it, letting the crowd know that that isn’t stopping her. Then the music starts abruptly and boldly. If Perra’s sound is the growling of a dog, Dear Evangeline is more akin to the growling of a big cat, wild and hissing. With higher-pitched vocals, the yelling registers more as screaming. The distorted guitars anchor the vocals, chugging along to the groove as the crowd anticipates the drop. Their last song begins with a steadily booming bass instrumental. At its end, there’s a sonic crescendo, as well as a visual one: the band members all raise into the air what they’re holding, as a triumphant finale.
Photo credit: Saania Jamal - Dear Evangeline
When it’s all over, it’s obvious no one really wants to leave. The usual pressure to mask with cool indifference has crumbled into the raw bits of humanity that pulled us all together tonight in the first place, sort of like when an audience collectively leaves a film as the lights turn back on. People are chatting, queuing up near the merch, looking up late-night eats. We linger now on an energetic threshold, wondering, after such an experience, what we will do in its after.