Sick of it All/Negative Approach/Dead Tired

Live in Toronto (2014)

mikebored

Sick of It All embarked on a 20 date tour this fall with Detroit's Negative Approach which took them across North America within a span of 22 days in support of Last Act of Defiance, their latest release.

They completed the tour on November 23, 2014 in Toronto at the Hard Luck Bar along with support acts Dead Tired and Jealous Gods in a sweaty, sold out room filled with 200+ rocking fans.

Opening the show was Toronto's very own Jealous Gods. This energetic, hardcore act helped get everyone pumped with their palm-muted chugging riffs and thrashy vocals reminiscent of The Melvins in their Houdini era. Albeit a somewhat short set they definitely proved to be a great opening taste of what was to come later in the night.

Next up was Dead Tired, another one of Toronto's own, featuring George Petit who was previously known to front St. Catharines act Alexisonfire. These guys have just recently come into the spotlight, debuting May 2014 and having played a few shows in the area including Riot Fest, they showed no mercy in their performance with Petit taking not only the stage but the floor also, giving himself some room to give it one of his utmost best performances vocally but not to say the rest of the band didn't deliver either. Another unfortunately short set, but not to despair, the best was yet to come.

Negative Approach came in and straight from the get-go proved to the then packed room that they have not lost any touch in their performances with songs from their one and only full length Total Recall, Negative Approach and Friends of No One. Granted the fact that most of their songs clock in at under 2 minutes, they still had the crowd going and rocking out and wanting more with front man John Brannon belching out aggressively to tunes such as "Can't Tell No One" "Ready To Fight" and "Hypocrite" and relatively new guitarist (since their reunion in 2006) Harold Richardson playing the raw, distorted riffs to the backing drums of original member Chris Moore and Ron Sakowski.

Last but not least Sick of it All finally took to the stage to an already pumped up crowd and did not fail to impress. Delivering tunes from albums such as Death to Tyrants, Built To Last and yes, of course Last Act of Defiance, some notable examples included "Die Alone", "Machete", "Closer", "Burn 'Em All" and "Busted". By then the crowd was all relentless, giving it their all and rocking to the tunes that were being played by the band. Vocalist Lou Koller even took the time to thank the crowd for coming and supporting Sick of it All through all these years and even joking about how some of the people at the show were not even old enough to remember their first release Blood, Sweat and No Tears back in 1989. The band continued after playing a couple of tracks from Last Act of Defiance and finished in a climactic encore certain to satisfy any fan whether young or old.

All said and done the night was memorable considering you had two bands that have existed from since the 80's that are still kicking and touring and releasing new material. On the flip side you have two relatively new acts that still showed an on par performance that I'm sure garnered more attention for them and won't stop there. The highlight of the night was definitely Dead Tired and I'm sure we'll hear more from them soon and what they're up to.