The Distillers, Crowned King, Dark Of My Love – Live (May 22, 2004)

Doors opened at seven, Crowned King was supposed to start at nine followed by The Distillers; that’s what everyone thought anyway. Around 7:45, a unknown band started playing, pulling people away from the merch table towards the mosh pit. They said their name once, and practically no one heard it. But the four piece band on the stage was Darker My Love and they were a garage rock band. For the first few songs, you couldn’t hear a thing the lead vocalist was saying. But luckily, one fan up close to the stage complained saying “Axe music is doing it, and they always screw up the vocals”; and magically, as the next song started, the vocals were much louder and clearer then before. I guess complaining does work at times.

As I said before, Darker My Love is a garage rock/grunge band. They wore tight clothes, walked around stiffly and sang on the mic the same way the lead singer of The Vines does. They received a mediocre reaction from the crowd, but nothing spectacular. The songs weren’t bad, but sounded somewhat the same as one another. After a 30 minute set, they left the stage as the roadies prepared for Crowned King to come on.

Around twenty minutes later the Vancouver seven piece came on stage, receiving a very loud and energetic welcome. The band played a much better set then they did last time I saw them, and even convinced me to pick up their album at the merch booth after the show. With a saxophone, a trumpet and a trombone in the band, Crowned King wasn’t your average punk band, but not ska either. They played fast paced rock songs adding extra layers with the use of the abnormal instruments.

Shaun Frank, the lead singer, put everything he had in it, and made it an extremely memorable set. Chris Hong, the trumpet player, picked up a blow up sex doll from the crowd and started petting Shaun’s head with it. Mr. Frank later decided to imitate the crowd and go for a crowd surf. Ordering a ice tea, he crowd surfed all the way to the back of the venue, picked up the ice tea, gave it to a lucky fan (which happened to be someone I was there with), proceeded to crowd surf back to the stage, all without missing a cue in his song. That is a feat that not many in the crowd will soon be forgetting. They sung a whole bunch of songs from their new album, Break The Silence, including Reason To Believe, All That She Wanted, Don’t Wanna Go, Impatience, A Song About Death, and many more. It was a great set, and for some reason, much more exciting then the last time I saw them.

Finally, the band everyone was there to see come on. The Distillers, fronted by Brody Dale wearing a revealing leather coat (see picture), played their set to an extremely excited crowd. They ripped through song, after song, after song, with barely a word. It took them four songs before even saying “How’s it going Edmonton?!?!?” They played most of their new album, Coral Fang, with a few from their old one, Sing Sing Death House; including The Hunger, Beat Your Heart Out, Sick Of It All, I Am A Revenant, City Of Angels, Drain The Blood, Dismantle Me, Hall Of Mirrors, Love Is Paranoid and Death Sex, and a cover song, but I forgot who they covered. As I said before, they didn’t do much talking, but instead just ripped through all the songs possible. The crowd loved it and went crazy each time Brody stepped up to the mic. They didn’t do anything spectacular that made the show extremely memorable. They just played the songs and let the crowd create the energy. It made for a fun night, but it would’ve been nice to see them put a little extra into the performance. One things for sure though, if The Distillers ever come back to E-town, I’m definitely going to be stopping by.