Destroy To Create

At the start of the summer my brother phoned me.

"Tim, my one buddy has basement shows all the time. He had the cancerbats at his place a little while ago. The next show is with the flatliners."
"Man! They're one of my my favourite bands!"
"Yea, I know, so i talked to him and it's supposed to be really dl, it'll probably be just a bunch of bands from Toronto. He said you can go though."

After hearing this I was extremely excited. I really loved these guys, and seeing them in a basement would be on of the coolest things I could think of. Ever since the first time i had seen them i had loved them. Speaking of the first time i had ever seen them...

For all of highschool i basically lived on www.4thwave.ca. On that site I saw a review for the flatliners debut, "destroy to create". I had heard the name tossed around a lot, but never got around to checking them out.

The show was Big D and The Kids Table's tour supporting the recently released "How It Goes". Opening the show were crowned king, the know how, green division, and the flatliners. At this point i really liked green division a lot and went nuts for their set. but following them was the flats, i went absolutely nuts. They were on of the greatest things i had ever heard. i checked them out every time they came around (which was very often) and just kept liking them more.

I had a revelation when i saw them open for the suicide machines. the first band had been god-awful and te flats followed them with an absolute scorcher of a set. I then realized that i had never seen them put on a bad set, every single time they were great. It was then that i thought, man these guys are something special.

Fast-forward to warped tour 2005. The flatliners started their set with a decent crowd, but it grew with every song. By the last song of the set they had a bigger crowd than some of the main stage bands had. The image of about 700 people singing the "oh-yea" ending of spill your guts is indelled into my mind.

Again fast-forward to about February 2007. I knew they had been writing a new record, but had only heard a song here and there live. They announced through a myspace bulleitin that had signed with fat wreck chords, which absolutely blew my mind. Secondly they had put up demos of two new songs. Upon hearing "...and the world files for chapter 11" and "mother theresa chokeslams the world", i was extremely happy. I don't think I've ever been as excited for a release and "the great awake", and everyone who was around me at this time can attest to this.

I went to the mall in Guelph to buy it the day it came out. I was taken aback after my first listen, they had changed their sound a lot since destroy to create, going for more straight-ahead punk sound than the ska-punk style of destroy to create. but it really grew on me. After each listen it just got better and better. The first time I saw them after this album came out was conviently in the dirtiest, smallest venue I've ever been in. Imagine shouting along the sing along choruses of that album in the shadow with no stage and you can imagine how it made me feel. After a long year of touring they came back to Toronto for a homecoming show, which i've already written about in this blog. They played a whole bunch of songs that they never do usually, showing how important their hometown is to them.

I thought that show would be the most amazing performance that they would ever turn in. But man was I wrong.

First of all finding the house where this basement show was happening a pretty huge trek for Jess and I. But everything worked out eventually and we found the place. I could hear them from the basement and rushed in. It was a very relaxed show, the band was pretty drunk and so was pretty much everyone else there. But drinking tall-boys of old-millwaukee while watching one of your favourites bands screw up their songs with shitty sound meant more to me than you can even imagine.

Afterwards we hung for a bit and the only people were pretty much the flats hostage life, and assorted other people. It was kind of surreal experince to be drinking with them.

setlist:
public service announcement
i'm not invisible (rocket from the crypt cover)
sleep is for bitches
a whole bunch of new songs
this respirator
spill your guts

The best part about this band is that they've never lost touch with the scene they came out of. Everyone who liked them 3 years ago still likes them now. They built up the band in the right way. They opened nearly every goddamn tour worth its salt that came through Ontario. When you see something grow and know that you were there first, it's definitely something special.

I'd Be Sure Not To Change At All

be careful, i might get emotional in this one.

i really didn't used to like them that much. i had a few songs here and there, but nothing really blew me away.

me and some friends started a band. our drummer was huge on them back then. he wanted to play some less than jake covers, and all the songs came from one cd that he had called losing streak. we ended up playing and through this i started to listen to them more. it was just i had heard the wrong songs before.

after that band broke up they gradually grew into a band that i casually enjoyed. but i still viewed them as a good band who sold out and became some lame pop-punk band because i was still too punk to recognize good songwriting. i downloaded an entire live show off their purevolume, and thought "hey, you know a live show wouldnt be all that bad, they play a pretty good amount of old stuff".

my stance completely changed on one day. i can tell you it was february 4th 2006 because i have the ticket right beside me. the first time i ever saw them live. they came out and played one of the greatest shows i'd ever seen. almost all older material. it was at this point that i really became a fan. more importantly i bought a cd at this show. i wanted another one, but all they had was anthem so i grabbed it.

i put cd in pretty high rotation because it was most of the material i had by them. also i didn't have an ipod so i would just throw an album in and listen to it all day long on the hour long to and from school. slowly i realised that even though it wasn't the most ska they'd ever put out it was a damn good album. i saw them twice again that year. they really became my favourite band. i loved them to death. but it was really the third time i saw them, again i have the ticket right here, it was october 8th 2006, that they really blew me away.

i've talked about this show a whole lot. they played losing strek in it's entirety. they knew only their hardcore fans would be at the show because it was on thanksgiving, and did this for them.

that really leads to one oy my major reasons for loving this band so much. they really do go above and beyond for their fans. its so cliche for bands to say "we love our fans", but less than jake really goes the extra mile. in-store appearances along the tours, which i touch on again later, all types of collectibles (can you say your favourite band sells beer cups and bobbleheads at their merch booth?), and above anything their shows. i'm sure theyre tired of playing songs off losing streak and hello rockview, but they still do. even when they were promoting their new album, in with the out crowd in 2006 and they new their fans hated it, they still played almost all old stuff, *cough* fuck you big d *cough*. them being huge fans themselves of bands like snuff and all, they know what its like for a band to do something really cool with their releases and merch. their t-shirts always really wicked designs, nothing like what other bands have, i'm going to drink out of my plastic cup politics cup from now on, three varieties off bobbleheads for sale. even with anthem, one of the parts i really liked was that they got a bunch of different artists to make an original art piece for each song on the album. and come you can't tell me that making the liner notes of hello rockview into a comic book isn't one of the coolest things you've seen. i know this is probably lost on the people who download albums for free now, but its not on me and i really appreciate it. thanks less than jake for going the extra mile and being that fuckin cool.

i guess i'll move onto the two sets i saw them play on wednesday july 9th, but i could go on for much longer about why i like them so much. but i wont bore you. first i saw them play an acoustic in-store at sunrise records during the day. it was just chris and roger playing acoustic guitars, it was short but sweet. another reason why i like them. while the two singers are playing the rest of the band aren't bein huge douches trying to look cool in front of their fans. vinnie and jr were looking through records to buy and buddy was filming the perfomance himself for christ's sake. but anyways it was a lot of fun. again it was pretty much just hardcore fans there. everyone was kind of hesitant to sing along because it was a instore but that ended as soon they player cheez.

setlist:
suburban myth
does the lion city still roar?
help save the youth of america from exploding
hows my driving, doug hastings?
richard allen george....no its just cheez
conviction notice

but the real treat is getting to see this band live. first of all they're tight, so they sound incredible. they have fun and make sure that everybody in the audience is having fun too. after seeing them three times in one year i had to wait a year and a half for this show. i was extremely excited.

big d left a bad taste in my mouth, but knowing that im seeing les than jake perform in ten minutes is enough to get me excited no matter what. they opened up with lion city and then tore through a standard less than jake mix of losing streak, rockview, borders and boundries, anthem, and gnv fla. instead of talking more i'll make a list of my favourite parts of the set

-in sugar in your gas tank when chris replaced the "as i could get" part with "as i could get a boner, a boner, a boner, a boner, a bo-oh-oh-oh-ohnnnner
-when they brought the security guard kurt to dance to thriller and chug a beer
-during the intro to gainesville rock city when halfway through the intro thats usually guitar, roger started doubling it on bass, and it gave me a feeling that i wish i had more often
-their amps/drumkit
-chris constantly talking about the buffalo bills moving to toronto
-chris constantly calling roger a poontang
-chris constantly calling their tour manager a poontang
-buddy and jr dressing up in white jumpsuits and richard nixon masks and scaring the living hell out of a girl from japan
-how they still played the sound bites from albums before last one out of liberty city and all my bestfriends are metalheads
-roger getting the audience to start singing bro hymn by pennywise during ghost of me and you
-chris calling the audience poontangs
-when the bassline comes in on history of a boring town. it gets me everytime

there was so much more but heres what they played in a slightly mixed up order:
does the lion city still roar?
johnny quest thinks we're sellouts
all my best friends are metal heads
look what happened
summon monsters
the science of selling yourself short
history of a boring town
ghosts of me and you
krazy glue
sugar in your gas tank
conviction notice
hows my driving, doug hastings?
last one out of liberty city
gainesville rock city
and they closed with plastic cup politics

the only downside was my back getting constanly bombarded by drunk "bros", because i have a really bad back. but i guess its more that something so important to me is just an excuse to get drunk for them.

thanks a lot less than jake, for being fun, and being awesome. i love your lyrics and your music. thanks for putting out gnv fla, its everthing i could have aked for in a "comeback record". ill love you guys till the day i die.