You get the impression that the next time The Front Bottoms play Rock City it won’t be in the confines of the basement. The place was absolutely packed to the rafters on Saturday night for a band whose name would make your nan blush, but whose qualities go beyond a bit of cheap toilet humour.
To get everyone in the mood was the sole support act of the night, Pup. The four-piece from Toronto, like their touring partners, are full of beans and between blasts of raw, anthemic and buoyant power-punk had the crowd laughing, clapping and cheering. If you walked into the room during their set you would have assumed it was the headline act, even if most were oblivious to their existence beforehand.
Quite bizarrely, but in keeping with their tongue-in-cheek disposition, The Front Bottoms materialised on-stage to the heartstring-plucking, orchestral tones of Andrea Bocelli’s Con Te Partiró (google it – it’s on The Sopranos). If most bands had done this you’d call it arrogant and pretentious but instead everyone giggled in the spirit in which it was intended.
Lead vocalist and guitarist Brian Sella, grinning groggily from behind his straggly locks, cuts an unassuming and endearing figure but a hugely popular one with his audience. They hang on his every word and as he cranks out the opening chords of the jumping, jubilant Skeleton the whole place erupts with joy.
The Front Bottoms’ funny and self-deprecating rock jingles are loaded with punk life force, like Frank Turner performing with Blink 182 if they could sing and play their instruments. The audience ranged right from teens to thirty-somethings and everyone was brimming with the infectious, effusive positivity that the band seem to constantly exude.
A nineteen song set in the stuffy basement was a real test of durability but the crowd lapped up every moment. The Front Bottoms blasted through tracks from their two full-lengths and new EP including the resplendently melodious Mountain, the whimsical Au Revoir and the nonchalantly nostalgic Funny You Should Ask.
They wrapped things up with an encore including fan-favourite Twin Sized Mattress which created absolute hysteria with crowd surfers and stage dives flying in from every conceivable angle. It would take the coldest of souls to walk out of Rock City without a smiling face and a spring in the step, and The Front Bottoms look like a band with a career trajectory as uplifting as their music.
The Front Bottoms played at Rock City on Saturday 30 August 2014.
The Front Bottoms' website
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