Alexisonfire lit up Toronto for the first time since the release of ‘Otherness’
More than 20 years after their inception, Alexisonfire remain one of the greatest and most important flagbearers of Canadian aggressive music. Their breakup in the early 2010s broke the hearts of fans from their home region of Southern Ontario and far beyond, but the band have slowly found their way back to each other over the years. They played reunion shows, made other live appearances, and released some singles over the course of the decade following their official breakup, but they have returned in full force since the release of their 2022 album Otherness.
Though Alexisonfire have spent the past year touring the world in support of Otherness and hosted the Born & Raised concert series in their hometown of St. Catharines last summer, they hadn’t yet hit the capital of their home province since their new album came out. That all changed last night when they lit up Toronto’s massive Budweiser Stage.
They kept support local, with two Toronto punk bands Metz and PUP opening for them. During their set, vocalist George Pettit pointed out the importance of propping up your local scene and showing love to your regional peers. They then broke into a cover of The Tragically Hip’s “Fully Completely”, paying tribute to the iconic Canadian rock group.
Other than that cover, their setlist was a career-spanning list of their own hits, starting and ending with songs from Otherness. They kicked off the night with “Sweet Dreams of Otherness”, the lead single from the record, and finished with “World Stops Turning”, marking the first time they ever played the 8-minute-long epic live. Between those two tracks, Alexisonfire returned to their scrappy post-hardcore debut with fan-favourites “Pulmonary Archery” and “.44 Caliber Love Letter”, played tons of essential bangers from their breakout record Crisis, and more.
They wished the crowd a happy pride month before bursting into “Accept Crime”, an incredibly powerful queer liberation anthem. And they began their encore with “Accidents”, a song that quite literally got me through high school – my phone wallpaper for all of 12th grade was a picture of the Watch Out! cover art with the lyrics “Let’s redefine what it means to heal” written across it. This is all to say that there are a lot of things that made last night’s show special for me personally, and Alexisonfire are the kind of band that have a huge impact on the people that love them. I could see it in the crowd around me the whole night, and I know the band did too.
