Montreal’s alternative rock roots were on
display at the MTelus this past week as one of the cities premiere alt-rock
outfits. Grimskunk have been at the head
of Montreal’s alt-rock table since the early 1990’s and are the perfect musical
companion to the city. Known for its
uniqueness and diversity, Montreal ranks among the top cities in North America
for a good time. As for Grimskunk, they
are the poster children for musical diversity.
Their songs feature several different languages and there is no genre
they have not tried, and mastered. On this evening, Grimskunk were celebrating the
anniversary of their self-titled debut album, Grimskunk. It has been 30 years since the release of
that landmark album, but neither the songs nor the band have lost any of their
energy. This was their 3rd
sold-out Montreal show over the last year and
fans came from all corners of the
province, and beyond, to participate in the non-stop party. Grimskunk then hit the stage to the wild cheers
of the crowd that only grew louder as singer/keyboardist Joe Evil looked out
upon the masses from his mask. The band
ripped into action with “Let’s Start A War”, from their most recent album,
2018’s Unreason in the Age of Madness. 'Action' being the key word. Along with a very animated Joe Evil, guitarist and vocalist Franz Schuller, even while seated, was a bundle of rock and roll energy that was dying to escape. If not for the fact that the fact that he was seated, he probably would have flown off the stage. If there were any people who had still not been moved to action by the
end of the 
song, the follow-up, “F@ck Shit Up” had stirred the MTelus into an
early frenzy of banging heads, flailing limbs and crowd surfing bodies. The next two hours was a celebration of not
only their 30th Anniversary of the Grimskunk album, but also the
city that they call home. The entire
album was played, as well as a selection of hits and crowd favourites. There
was also a special guest in the form of guitarist Martin Dupuis from
another legendary Montreal band, Groovy Aardvark, who joined the band on
stage for the show. The concert was just as wild and impressive as
it was when I saw them back in my school days, though I was much closer to the
stage on this night than the younger me would have dared. All of the photographs were taken at f/3.2 while using various different shutter speeds, ISO settings and focal lengths. Here are the rest of the photographs that I took of Grimskunk while they performed on the MTelus stage.
