Tiger Army, The Unseen – Live (April 30th, 2008)

It has taken Tiger Army far too long to do a Canadian tour. For some reason or another they have never ventured up north to treat their Canadian fans to their psychobilly music live and it’s not like we didn’t want to see them. A lot of the shows on the tour has already sold out and Edmonton was the first one of them to do just that.

The house was packed with rabid punk fans waiting to see the SoCal trio live and after a slightly longer than expected set change the band finally hit the stage. As the lights dimmed, a grainy version of Hank Williams, Sr’s Angel of Death played over the speakers. The band made their way onto the stage and opened with Prelude: Signal Return and as they proudly shouted “Tiger army never die!” the crowd exploded.

Tiger Army were the first band of the night to have a solid sound as both The Unseen and High Jinks suffered through slight sound problems during their performances. For their sets, the vocals seem consistently low in the mix but luckily the psychobilly trio didn’t suffer that problem. Nick 13’s vocals sounded great as they played an hour long set that featured selections from their entire career. Hitting such tracks Rose of the Devil’s Garden, Nocturnal, Outlaw Heart and When Night Comes Down, the band hit the current mainstays but also dove into some songs they hadn’t played in a while since they had never been to town before to play them.

Newly returned stand up bassist Geoff Kresge took over most of the in between song banter as Nick 13 switched between different guitars depending on the song. He encouraged the crowd to lend their voice to the chorus of Pain but they needed no encouragement for Forever Fades Away or F.T.W. Instead they sung back freely and energetically without any encouragement. Nick 13 enthusiastically thanked the crowd for being their first sold out show on the tour before ending their set with the aforementioned F.T.W.

After a few minutes of chanting, they came back on stage to deliver a cover of The Misfits‘ American Nightmare (but not the Morrissey cover that they normally play) before they ended the entire evening with the crowd pleasing, circle pit inducing, Never Die.

It may have taken the band longer than normal to get out to Edmonton, but they made up for it with their performance; and the crowd ate it up as they displayed their tiger bat tattoos with pride.