{"id":8676,"date":"2014-03-21T16:21:36","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T16:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=8676"},"modified":"2014-03-21T16:21:36","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T16:21:36","slug":"teenage-kicks-all-through-the-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2014\/03\/21\/teenage-kicks-all-through-the-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenage Kicks :: All Through The Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

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by Matt Williams<\/b><\/p>\n

Last night, Power 97 hooked up Winnipeg\u2019s hungry rock \u2018n\u2019 roll fans with three bands and a St. Patrick\u2019s Day party. It was about exactly what you\u2019d imagine if you picked up on the key words there \u2013 dudes in “Keep Calm and Chive On” and Dropkick Murphy\u2019s shirts, young longhairs and aging rock star wannabes, women with short, edgy haircuts in faux leather, Bud cans and Jager on special. Most of the crowd looked underage, like it was their first time seeing live music in a bar, and that sentiment was reinforced tenfold when a fat drunk in shamrock sunglasses knocked my beer out of my hand and fell flat on his ass. Neither him nor his Neanderthal buddy in Mardi Gras beads offered to replace it. Kids should learn the rules.<\/p>\n

I hovered around the back waiting for anything to start, while another, different fat drunk yelled, \u201clet\u2019s fuckin\u2019 git \u2018er dun, boys! Let\u2019s get this show on the road! Turn down the suck!\u2019 to absolutely no one in particular, and eventually The Revival hit the stage. I skipped their set, and came back to the lead singer pointlessly shirtless, and was happy I\u2019d missed it. I also didn\u2019t catch headliners The Glorious Sons \u2013 essentially a Trews rip-off band from Kingston who made their name entering and winning commercial rock radio contests (and winning at least one judged by members of The Trews). I was only there for Teenage Kicks.<\/p>\n

On a night defined by macho posturing and confused bravado, the Toronto band, stuck in the middle set, cranked out half an hour of honest, sweaty rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, devoid of pretense and full of monster riffs and fist-pumping choruses. They book-ended it with spot-on covers of “Helter Skelter” and “Rock and Roll All Nite,” filling the middle with a heavy dose of tunes from their upcoming debut album, Spoils of Youth<\/i>. If the rest of it sounds anything like the first two previews \u2013 catchy sing-a-long head-nodder \u201cDigging Up Old Bones\u201d and the high-energy swagger of \u201cHoudini\u201d \u2013 it\u2019ll be worth throwing on for a drive with the volume cranked all the way up.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost a miracle that it even exists at all, though. Under the Pyramid\u2019s neon sign after their set, bassist Jeff van Helvoort explained that, \u201cin true Teenage Kicks fashion,\u201d Spoils of Youth<\/i> faced myriad road bumps, including the departure of band members and a $40,000 bill for the time of an LA producer who treated them simply as a paycheque. They deemed most of what they recorded in California un-usable, and Jeff\u2019s brother, singer and guitarist Peter van Helvoort, produced and recorded a chunk of it at home in Toronto.<\/p>\n

Jeff talks about the goal of the whole thing \u2013 to play real, honest music, with integrity \u2013 and mentions Constantines as an inspiration, which is apt. Constantines were a band whose name is nearly synonymous with “work,” resilient rock \u2018n\u2019 roll that never lied to anyone, a group who died with their boots on (and are now resurrected, but that\u2019s a different story). Juxtaposed between the two other bands tonight, it\u2019s clear that Teenage Kicks is a subscriber to the Cons ideology \u2013 the one that celebrates sincerity, hard work, rolling up your sleeves, and doing what you do because you know you need<\/i> to do it. And what more would you want from rock \u2018n\u2019 roll?<\/p>\n

Teenage Kicks are playing the Park Theatre for JUNOFest on Mar. 29, with Pigeon Park, Take Me To The Pilot, Distances, and The Flatliners, where there will be no trace of St. Patrick\u2019s Day greasiness.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Matt Williams Last night, Power 97 hooked up Winnipeg\u2019s hungry rock \u2018n\u2019 roll fans with three bands and a St. Patrick\u2019s Day party. It was about exactly what you\u2019d imagine if you picked up on the key words there \u2013 dudes in “Keep Calm and Chive On” and Dropkick Murphy\u2019s shirts, young longhairs and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[507,508],"class_list":["post-8676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-junofest","tag-junos-2014"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}