Skinny Puppy + Army of the Universe @ Club Soda

May 25th of 2014 will mark the 10-year anniversary of Skinny Puppy's Greater Wrong of the Right, the first album the band released since The Process in 1996. Due to this, and the release of last year's stellar album Weapon, the band is currently touring with an, of course, absurdly named "Shapes For Arms" tour.

Walking into Club Soda, I really didn't know what to expect from the whole thing. It's no big secret that industrial as a genre is only propped up on nostalgia from people like me, and is apparently, doing especially bad in Montreal. With very little industrial groups stopping through and Canada's (and possibly North America's) biggest industrial/dark wave festival, Kinetik, which is heading over to Toronto for what might be a permanent stay. With that in mind, what kind of people would I see? Would they be left over goths? Would there be any people at all, especially with tickets being an exorbitant 37 dollars.

I was in for some rare treats though, as Club Soda opened up their balcony for people to sit on, leaving me to believe that I'd probably be seeing my fair share of people, and I was certainly right. Before the first band even started, the place was packed, many opting to be lazy like me and get a seat on the balcony. But, the leftover goths I expected were in the minority, with the majority of people just being normal, straight-looking people, a fact that I still can't quite wrap my head around.

With the crowd in place, the first band came on. The Milan, Italy four-piece Army of the Universe was serviceable, and did manage to throw in some pretty simple things to liven up their show, such as a pair of laser pointer finger gloves and a FULL FUCKING KEYTAR OF AWESOMENESS. It still suffered from the same kind of problems that industrial bands seem to have. I've noticed after seeing a lot of them that they really seem almost soulless live, and to be honest, I don't know why. Maybe it's because they knew that they were merely a stepping stone in the way of what people were really there to see. As one other concert goer stated when asking me how they were, "They know what we're all doing here, and it's not to see them."

I also theorize that it has to do with the fact that there's very little room for improv when one of your band members is a pre-recorded track that you can't really stop or slow. It's like playing a video game that's on rails and takes you where it wants to go, rather than a mission-based story that lets you get to the objectives. And let's face it, no one has ever said that House of the Dead on Aerosmith-based Revolution X were the greatest games they ever played, regardless of how much fun they were. Either way, this was proven later to be a rather flawed theory. 

Mentioning that they were going to "make enemies," the band played songs such as "The Hipster Sacrifice" and "Kill the DJ". The problem was that the vocals were so unclear that I'm sure no one had any idea what they were singing about. In the end, I was left feeling like I had seen a local band rather than a band that travelled across an ocean.

Then, after a short break, Skinny Puppy took the stage. Not only did three guys show that industrial could be entertaining, but they showed that it has room for showmanship and fire. Projections, radiation umbrellas, costume changes, including one where lead singer Nivek Ogre dressed like a dog... all managing to be bizarre and yet totally acceptable and understandable from a band that clearly knows what it's doing. Through all of this, three guys (I need to stress this again) were able to flawlessly play songs from Skinny Puppy's 32 years of work. Throughout the whole thing, I was transfixed by how effortlessly the band performed and how Ogre owned the stage.

After a brief intermission, the band came back out, sans all the weird props, and performed a bunch of older songs. Even without the help of a wide array of distractions, the band was still super entertaining and showed why they have survived for as long as they have as a musical entity.

All in all, the night was fantastic. I know the price is steep, but if this tour comes by you, you should seriously consider going to see it, just don't expect to buy much merch, because apparently, those straight, normal-looking people are buying a TON of merchandise to spruce up their wardrobe.