HighEnd, Gas Station Scene @ ClubOne, February 21 2004

review by Psyko

What a fucking blast. I never cease to get moved with Montreal bands man, and I know it wasn’t the beer (this time!). HighEnd, a totally rockin’ punk band with influences by Rancid, NOFX and Social Distortion hit the stage for the opening. We sat right under the fucking speakers (big mistake!!!) ‘cause boy oh boy can ‘Psycho Ben’ and Richard scream! And what a way to introduce a hardcore punk song by promising it’ll help grannies sleep! Oh and Luke, I’d show ya my tits as a token of appreciation for your bravery, (being in a band ain’t enough!). Those guys just hit it as it is and have a blast doin’ it, they’re super fun and fucked up and I’m glad we got along! Brent from Gas Station Scene tagged along for the last track and HELL BROKE LOOSE and you know I wouldn’t be meaning that in a bad way (ever!). I checked out the lyrics off their Demo CD and FINALLY, no cheese! One amazing song is When An Angel Cries, and one of the tracks was dedicated to a cause I truly believe in; against child abuse. Check out their website www.highendmtl.com and remember…

DON’T FEED THE FERRETS!

(I still never really understood that but I’m still on the mission of finding out! I had a funny experience with an old geezer at the metro once who had a ferret and needed me to hold it for what felt like 2 hours, and the jerk off stalked me, so this trauma is causing my ‘hunt for answers bout the ferret story’ to be a tad slow… bite me!!!).

Anyways! Then, Gas Station Scene hit the stage at friggin’ midnight which was romantic as hell considering that the lead singer BoyToy Kenny has one of the saddest most emotional expressions on his face which could be misinterpreted as a ‘horny’ face which I’m proud for not having! But with a g-string hanging off Brent’s mic and a pink bra hanging off John’s mic, it’s no wonder some bimbo kept screaming words we couldn’t make out and shaking her tits to the band. But just when I thought there was more to the show than balls and tits and gas and ferrets, they struck us with a shocker remake of Britney Spears’ Hit Me Baby One More Time (that bitch does not deserve any capital letters!) but in a total rocked out fucked up version with some altered lyrics and I could’ve sworn one of the first few lines was “burp your baby!”. Nice touch boys J Brent seemed unhappy at some point that the place wasn’t so packed but I personally thought it was good they got that many people out anyway, but he had to open his big (but funny!) mouth saying that if all his illegitimate children came they’d have a bigger crowd, and it’d be full of Asians! That guy cracked me up until he held the g-string and asked why it smelt like fish round here! Screw you, you reak of gas! 

Ok ok, on a serious note, these guys kicked melodic ass that night and were very professional for a band that’s played about 5 shows all around and had been together for only a year and a half. They took a break during the night but Brent jammed on his acoustic guitar at some point and played some classics that really hit home in entertainment and the memory lane, Peter (voice of a God, IMO) from SignofOne (who was at the MoshCore’04 just before!) got up and sang an STP song with him. Finally when the band got up again, they performed a slightly twisted version of Creep by Radiohead, like any other cover, gets the crowd wet everytime. One song I really liked was “What do you want from me?” Their influences range from the Foo Fighters, The Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, the Deftones, Pearl Jam, The Doors and just about anything that sounds good! Apparently most of the boys that were there work for PizzaHut and at some point, the ‘boss’ got up and rapped “Baby’s got Back” by Sir Mix A lot, what a contrast! And the way they got together was quite cool too, Brent’s parents had left the house for them for 2 weeks for jamming and partying (ironically soon after they formed the band) which they did heavily everyday of the hot humid summer days from noon to 5am, which is how and when they came up with about 6-7 songs “that vary in emotions and music, like people are”. They’re honest and their main priority is having a good time, and so far, there’s been no complaints bout the longevity of their sets! Their site is temporarily down but you can find em on MMS under their band name, or write to me, or better yet wait until I get the deal and update this review ;) 

They are: 
Rob- Drums/Keys
John- Bass/Vocals
Kenny- Vocals/Guitar
Brent- Guitar/Vocals/Drums

~psyk0

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