Chixdiggit 25 year anniversary show with BOIDS and Pistols at Dawn at House of TARG
Canadian pop-punk heroes Chixdiggit rocked a soldout House of TARG on their 25th anniversary tour Thursday night.
The four-piece from Calgary had as much fun on stage playing the songs as we did taking them all in. I had never seen them play before and was so ridiculously excited when the show was announced. Chixdiggit certainly did not disappoint. One of the highlights was watching lead singer and guitarist KJ chat with the crowd between songs. The man is hilarious and always encouraging people to clap for something. Whether it is for the band not screwing up older songs, for the bass player who is soon to be a dad, for the rest of band for already being dads, bigger cheers for KJ’s wife for being on tour with a one year old or having the crowd clap and cheer for itself – we sure clapped a lot.
As you can see from the picture above, the band had a big list of songs to play and let the crowd pick every track. The entire set was pretty much by request, which is super awesome of a band to do. They did however place one caveat, “We are going to try everything and we will make mistakes I hope that’s alright.” Chixdiggit played so many songs on the night I lost count when they went over 20 songs. The list included crowd favourite “Chupacabra,” as well as “Quit Your Job,” “Shadowy Bangers From A Shadowy Duplex,” “You’re Pretty Good,” “I Hate Basketball” and so many more as you can imagine.
They also showed respect and knowledge of the Ottawa punk scene giving a shoutout to Punchbuggy who formed in 1994 and were often refered to as the hardest working band in Canada during the 90s. It was also very appropriate that they did so when playing the Chixdiggit pop punk classic “I Wanna Hump You.” The band didn’t even leave the stage before doing their encore. They just had a few more sips of the Chixdiggit beer released by local brewer Big Rig Brewing and launched into another slew of tracks. They closed with “Geocities Kitty” which KJ introduced as “the best chix song ever written.” If being at a 25 year anniversary tour didn’t make you feel old enough, this song certainly sealed the deal. What a great show.
Before chix, it was BOIDS from Montreal. The three-piece put on a great show and I loved how they got the crowd involved early by having us sing la la las during “Fuck Your Macho Bullshit,” which is one hell of a tune. The band kind of had a Bouncing Souls feel to them and I love the Bouncing Souls. This was most evident to my ears during “Hong Kong Canyon” which also happened to be my favourite track from their set. I also really liked their new song “Paranoid Cities.”
The local opener of the bill who had the joy of opening the show was Pistols at Dawn, which features members of Valveenus and Roadhaus. Somehow I had also never seen these guys play and let me tell you I am glad I finally did. It is pretty rad to see Richard Barrie (Rich Chris/Valveenus/Roadhaus) finally play the role of lead-singer and frontman for a band. The dude just oozes positivity and energy on stage. The highlight of their set was their song “The Fear” in which they ask themselves “why do we live here?” and they adamantly answer their own question “because its our home!” Almost every can relate when you are singing about Ottawa winter and second guessing why you tough it out every year. The guitarist played the final three songs with only five strings, having broken one. He didn’t ask for another guitar as he didn’t want to be “that guy.” Pistols at Dawn closed with a super fun song about Pouzzafest which put a big ol’smile on my face.