Red Mass @ Quai des Brumes

For the past six years, since the demise of his last band CPC Gangbangs, Roy Vucino has been crafting an ongoing music and art project known as Red Mass. With a revolving door membership both on stage and on record, Red Mass has finally evolved into what Vucino had envisioned almost a decade ago. With a core of himself, Hannah Lewis (keyboards/vocals), Jonathan Bigras (drums), and Phillippe Caouette (bass), set to tour this summer and their first full length album, A Hopeless Noise: The Story of Diamond Girl, soon to be released, Red Mass took to the stage at Quai des Brumes on Friday night and showed all in attendance that this band is ready for the next step.

Dressed in formal wear and face paint, with a backdrop of the red velvet curtains behind the stage, Red Mass launched into a ferocious set culled from old classics like Saturn and new songs off A Hopeless Noise. It didn’t take long for the audience to be whipped into a frenzy of what could only be described as a cross between a punk rock party and a pagan ritual. Crowd surfing, slam dancing and an endless flow of beer and sweat, kept the dance floor in a perpetual state of motion as the band played for close to an hour.

As is often the case at a Red Mass show, Vucino would slowly remove articles of clothing as the night wore on. First to go was the black suit jacket, followed a few songs later by the completely drenched white dress shirt. Now bare chested, with so much sweat that his make-up was running down his face and his many tattoos glistening under the stage lighting, he began to take on the appearance of of cult leader, which is only fitting for a band name Red Mass.

To bring the show one step even further into the realm of the theatrical weirdness, Vucino donned a goat-head mask and jumped into the waiting arms of his followers. As they passed him around he continued to sing and inspire the mayhem. Eventually making his way back on stage for an extended psychedelic jam with the band before raising his guitar over his head and bring it and the show to a crashing finale.

Shortly after the lights went up the place quickly emptied as most people had nothing left. It was all left at the altar of one of Montreal’s greatest musical experiences.

Red Mass have one more local show, opening for Atlanta’s Black Lips at the Corona Theatre on April 21, before they hit the road on a 21 date tour playing with King Khan and The Shrines across America. I would strongly recommend you see them now, so that you can say you saw them before they became the biggest thing in a decade to come out of Montreal. My guess is that Vucino and his gang of merry punksters will be winning hearts and leaving spent bodies from here to Los Angeles.