The Planet Smashers / The Nightshift / The Heatskores

Union Label Group if you’ve never heard, are one of Canada’s latest pioneering punk/ska labels. At the forefront of the Canadian punk music industry they’re continuously setting to help out the scene and they’re at it once again enlisting some of Canada’s greatest independent ska bands for their newest compilation entitled ‘All-Skanadian Club 4’. Who better to choose to headline the show for it’s big release party than the skankiest of them all ‘The Planet Smashers’, lined-up with the support of ‘The Heatskores’ and ‘The Nightshift’. I knew this show wouldn’t let down so I laced up my dancing shoes and headed my ass east to Montreal for what I knew would be another classic concert.

The Heatskores were first to play, a four-piece, punk-ska band from Toronto they have a track featured on the All-Skanadian Comp. called ‘Brutha Ska’. The first song they played that night was real fast and punk, probably my favorite but I didn’t catch the name, after that track some ska came out but they were definitely all over the map with different sounds, I even thought sometimes the singers voice sounded real rockabilly, they’re style was definitely different. For some I was with, refreshing for others not so, they’re that kind of band you don’t really appreciate till later when you think about it. On stage though, they really rocked out and did well at holding things together for their first Montreal show. They really topped things off though when they came out with this song that basically consisted of them screaming ‘I fucked your mother in the ass and she had you’, c’mon you have to get out for entertainment like this. Over all now at this point, I think I liked these kids.

Another band from Toronto featured on the All-Skanadian Comp. called ‘The Nightshift’, were next on stage. They were all-instrumental band and had a jazzy-ska sound that I didn’t expect to hear that night. Despite the lack of vocals everyone seemed to see eye to eye with their performance and I agree they were a good choice to open the stage for the Planet Smashers. Their first song played was called ‘Athabasc’ it caught my attention, a few others I noted were ‘No Name’ and ‘Don Juan’. If you like that rhythmic jazzy side of music you’ll love these guys, but I myself prefer the speedy side of things and even though things sounded tight I had trouble staying into them as much as everyone around me, I just wanted to see the Planet Smashers.

The stellar Smashers always wreak havoc when they play but this being a hometown sold-out show it was crazy, the kids couldn’t get enough. The band’s also been in hibernation for the past few months busily working on a new album so that night for the first time live their fans got a taste of it, in total they played four new songs they even opened with a new one called ‘Retribution’ my favorite out of them all followed by their classic track ‘Happy’. The crowd especially responded when they played ‘Life Of The Party’, ‘Blind’ and of course the infamous ‘Super Orgy Porno Party’. For their song ‘Too Much Attitude’ The Nightshifts girl saxophone player joined them on stage while Leon (on saxophone) was climbing the stacks and walking right into the crowd, there was absolutely no one willing to stand still it was chaos I tell you. There was no passing up an encore, some kids even drove from Boston for this show so the Smashers let everyone have it with ‘Surfin in Tofino’ and ‘Sk8 or Die’, this is undoubted the best ska show I’ve ever seen, this mission was worth every penny of the road trip.