Off The Floor Festival rocks DSTRCT
With all the festivals going on in Guelph – seemingly constantly – it always reminds one of the huge breadth of talent in the city, area, and country. Off The Floor Fest, hosted between downtown’s DSTRCT and Jimmy Jazz on Jan. 30 and 31, brought some of the region’s hardest bands together for two nights of musical mayhem, with a welcomed focus on no frills, straight-ahead punk rock.
Pet Sun and The Flu (aptly named for whatever bloody illness is going around the city right now) kicked off the festival at the Jimmy Jazz on Jan. 30 with walls of noise and devil-may-care performance weirdness. Pet Sun’s subtly surf-informed punk, and The Flu’s absolutely vicious guitar/drum noise brought the room’s energy level through the roof, offering a strong glimpse of what was to come the following night on the second and third floors of DSTRCT.
Though Toronto math-rock duo Junior Bob was slated to play, Guelph local Tyson Brinacombe (Tyson and his Gameboy, Esther Grey) filled in and kicked off the night with a solo guitar, vocal, and drum machine set. Brinacombe’s material, informed by alternately noisy and gentle guitar sounds and an 80s drum machine aesthetic, is whimsy and personal, even featuring a lovely tune about his cat.
Toronto’s Christian Punk Band performed on the third floor, with a high energy, distinctively pop-oriented punk set and an enthusiastic response in the room – the two floors were just really starting to fill up by this point. More straight-ahead punk rock followed with Guelph’s Start Something, performing on the second floor. Waterloo-based Life in Vacuum, a techy (but not too techy) post-hardcore outfit also performed on the third floor shortly after to another raucous response.
As fun as the whole evening was, the real highlights came with the last three bands of the night – Dirty Frigs, Brutal Youth, and Monomyth closed out the evening’s events with varied, high energy sets. The Frigs’ compellingly dark psych-rock returned to rock Guelph after a memorable appearance at the eBar in November of last year. Singer Bri Salmena engaged the crowd with a clear love for her craft, as she drifted through the crowd, mike in hand, and with a echo-drenched voice of undeniable power.
Brutal Youth, bar none, put on the most energetic show of the night, though. The Toronto-based hardcore outfit did a punk set the way it should be – really short, really fast, and crushingly heavy
songs characterized their sound, and at one point the power went out on the third floor (but was thankfully brought back after some brief tinkering). If that’s not tough as nails, I don’t know what is anymore.
Halifax-based Monomyth ended the night with engaging, dream-pop informed indie rock. Performing material off their excellent LP Saturnalia Regalia!, the band closed the evening’s events on a strong note, blending spaced-out, reverb heavy sounds with strong musical chemistry and a heartfelt stage presence.
Though most of the bands were distinctively punk-oriented, it was surely a welcomed lineup and an antidote to the perceived over-saturation of folk-inspired music in the Guelph independent circuit. As the seventh installation of the OTF Fest, here’s to looking forward to the next one.