Don't Fuck Up And Miss Fucked Up

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 22, 2011 4:00PM

Photo of Fucked Up by Daniel Boud

Fucked Up, the merry band of prog punks from Toronto, play Chicago next week, and it promises to kick off the fall concert season with a fucking bang. Opening the show is surf/garage/indie darling Wavves. Both bands promise compelling sets for wildly different reasons.

Fucked Up is touring behind David Comes To Life, an ambitious concept album that details a tragic tale of love and betrayal. At 18 tracks over 60+ minutes it can be a bit of an exhausting listen, and the tale is a thorny one, but the music is so uniformly exciting and energetic we have yet to tire of listening to it. We have a few tracks from this opus for you below in case you need an aural taste of just how kick-ass these songs really are. And if the band's musical excellence isn't enough to entice you to attend tonight's show, then go because Fucked Up is a truly amazing live act. While Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham commands serves as an easy focus for your attention as her careens around the stage and willfully puts himself at the edge of constant catastrophic bodily harm, the rest of the band keeps the tension rising as they churn out a hardcore hail to shower over the audience.

Waaves' King Of the Beach is full of tight and fuzzy summer hooks and their new EP Life Sux, out this week and featuring a collaboration with this evening's headliners, shows the group led by Nathan Williams is only sharpening their songwriting. Williams has an undeniable ear for sweet melodies and sharp hooks but his distortion pedal and vocal delivery that's just off-key enough keeps everything sounding deceptively loose. In our experience their live shows have been just as epic as Fucked Up's but for a different reason; we have yet to see Wavves make it through a full set without falling apart. Literally. Granted we've only seen the band in festival settings so we're hoping that this gig in front of a dedicated fan base sees the band in fighting form.

So there you have it, two bands touring at the height (so far) of their respective careers. Don't fuck up and miss this.

MP3: Fucked Up "The Other Shoe"
MP3: Fucked Up "Queen Of Hearts"

Fucked Up and Wavves play Sept. 29, at Logan Square Auditorium, 2539 N Kedzie, 7 p.m., $15, all ages