The Distillers – Live in Vancouver (09/10/18)

It’s true – when it rains, it pours. After a somewhat dry summer of concerts in Vancouver, September is hitting it out of the park with more shows than there are days.  There’s the massive events – Skookum Festival in Stanley Park and Foo Fighters at Rogers Arena took center stage this weekend – and smaller festivals like Wewstard Fest takes over downtown next weekend. But for us in the punk crowd, September also sees an abnormally large amount of touring acts coming through town – all of which had drastically different vibe and attitudes.

Saturday saw Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls celebrate joy and unity. Sunday saw Andrew WK make peace through partying. And last night, The Distillers brought anger and venom into the rainy city of Vancouver.

After a twelve year hiatus, Brody Dalle and her friends in The Distillers are finally back and they brought their raw punk rock energy to a packed house at the Commodore Ballroom. Twelve years is a long time to be away but the quartet were far from rusty. With one of the more minimalists set-ups I’ve seen grace the stage at Commodore – their backdrop was merely strips of wrinkled tin foil reflecting light at all angles – they spent the evening predomenantly back-lit, letting the audience watch silhouettes power through  eighteen tracks without rest.

Dalle barely spoke and when she did, it was just the standard gentle platitudes of a touring band. For The Distillers that makes sense. They live through their angst filled music and that’s all they needed. The crowd – a much greater gender equality than normal which was wonderful to see – ate it up. The moment Sick Of It All ripped through the speakers, the pit opened up from all sides and never stopped. Many people were lost in a state of euphoria, seeing a band they haven’t seen in a decade mere meters away and singing along to I Am A Revenant, The Hunger, LA Girl, Love is Paranoid, Coral Fang and Beat Your Heart Out.

Proving that they’re back to stay, they even introduced a new song (which I’ve read is called Man vs Magnet) that fit seamlessly into the set. For their encore, they ended with the one-two punch of The Young Crazed Peeling and City of Angels and you could see the legacy that The Distillers have cemented for themselves.

With only three albums under their name, the last of which came out in 2003 – 2003!!!! – some may consider the band pretty young. Yet those albums, released at the perfect time in the turn of the century, have become punk rock must-haves. Last night’s show proved that The Distillers are still a forced to be reckoned with and are just getting started.

This band, and their anger, is important and inspiring; and it’s great to see them back on stage again.