Nashville Pussy + The Supersuckers @ Foufounes Electriques

Fans of rock'n'roll tend to value one thing above all else: consistency. You will never hear an AC/DC fan complaining that their latest record sounds just like their last one... if anything, the fact that those Aussies have been recording the same album over and over since the 80s is almost a point of pride. A KISS fan will never say "man, I just wish they had experimented with their sound on that last record, you know?". When these bands branch out, as they occasionally do, they know they're best off keeping it brief, like the odd country song that Motörhead has released over the last decade. Bottom line? The unofficial motto of rock'n'roll fans everywhere may as well be "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," and the groups they worship know this well.

Two bands that figured this out early on in their career are Nashville Pussy and The Supersuckers, currently out on a co-headlining North American tour. Unbelievably, The Supersuckers have been doing this since 1988, with Nashville Pussy jumping into the fray just under a decade later, which means both bands have been slinging the same sleazy, southern fried, punk inspired rock'n'roll for hungry fans for a minimum of 15 years a piece.

It's easy to forget this, sometimes. I've seen Nashville Pussy more times than I can count over the last decade or so (8 times feels right, although I can't quite figure out the exact number), and to a very real degree, I feel like I'm growing old right alongside them. Despite the revolving door of bass players, Ruyter, Blaine and Jeremy have remained very much the same over the years, with that agelessness reserved only for rock'n'rollers. Sadly, the same can't be said of their fans (yours truly included), since the only thing that reminded me of how long they've been around (and how long I've been listening to them) was the sea of middle aged faces in the audience.

By contrast, seeing The Supersuckers, who "opened" that night, is a much rarer occasion for me. This was only my second time, despite having listened to them for over a decade, and yet there's something so comfortable, so familiar about them that I easily felt like I'd seen them half a dozen times before. One of the most professional bands in the biz, frontman Eddie Spaghetti is a commanding showman who seems to take pride in giving his fans what they want, and this time was no exception. For whatever reason, The Supersuckers know how to deliver a satisfying show better than most, no more, no less. In fact, the first two songs they performed felt a little phoned in, and fell a little flat, after which Spaghetti announced "Okay, this is where the show starts. We're gonna start the show now," and proceeded to jump in with renewed enthusiasm, and the crowd followed suit. They made sure to cover all the "big hits", including the first three songs from 2003's Motherfuckers Be Trippin', and left the audience happy and ready for Nashville Pussy.

The hits kept coming when Nashville Pussy took the stage, with Eddie Spaghetti surprisingly filling in on bass guitar. With half as many studio albums as The Supersuckers, all four records were pretty well represented. I was pleasantly surprised to hear "Go To Hell" from 2000's High As Hell (although I knew the title track would be a guarantee), and while I could have used a song or two more from Say Something Nasty (2002), I was, as always, satisfied. No matter how the years roll on, husband and wife team Blaine Cartwright and Ruyter Suys have nailed down a formula that will be forever ageless. Ruyter is still one of the best guitar players around, with more stage presence than most, and it's a sad fact that history may put her near the top of the list, but that list will always somehow have "female" in the title (as in this Elle Magazine article from a few years back). As for Blaine, no one has distilled the essence of "dirty rock'n'roll hillbilly" with quite the same perfection.

This is why, no matter how many times Nashville Pussy or The Supersuckers roll through Montreal, I will most likely be there, until I too am a middle-aged face, and the middle-aged faces alongside me will be just plain aged. After all, there's value in consistency.

-Angelica hosts BVST on Wednesday nights from 7-9pm