Rockfreaks.net

support n/a
author RUB date 26/06/23 venue VoxHall, Århus, DEN

Long at last: PUP’s first Danish visit outside of Copenhagen — and I couldn’t be happier! That is, until I remember it is Monday and that this might reduce the number of people willing to attend a show like this. As such, it is not without a certain amount of anxiety that I pop inside the venue of VoxHall, only to discover that my fears have become reality: the crowd is very scarce. In this situation, it is good that the band is delayed by roughly half an hour, and I’m also pretty certain that I’ve just seen them arrive with a pizza as I’ve entered the venue around 15 minutes earlier, so it all makes sense. Nevertheless, this helps with the crowd situation, because when PUP eventually does take the stage, I would estimate the turnout to have swelled to around 100 people. It is still Århus, mind you, so I continue to fret for a pop-punk band taking on one of the biggest stages in the city. In fact, I’m a little bit surprised PUP is not playing at Roskilde Festival, which is taking place simultaneously, as for me, they are the perfect band for those festivities. Roskilde’s loss, I suppose.

PUP

Kicking it off with “Morbid Stuff” off its namesake 2019 album, I’m instantly taken back to the very first time I heard PUP. The vocals are spot on, it is just as melodic and melancholy as I had hoped, and despite the venue not being as jam-packed as one could’ve hoped for, it does not stop the band from delivering. Up next is “Kids” from that same record, and as three guys start some gentle moshing, I turn to my mate Albert and ask: “When can you call it a mosh pit?” He answers: “Two people is a fight — three is moshing”, so it seems like moshing is definitely already going on. The crowd tonight is rather young, which invokes a nice vibe since the energy the members of PUP themselves display on stage is that much more easily transferred to the floor.

At one point, lead singer Stefan Babcock asks us: “It feels like a Monday… Is it a Monday?”, before continuing, “By the end of this set, it'll feel like a Wednesday, I promise”, and is met with lots of laughter. Things have indeed already started to pick up; the crowd has grown even slightly bigger, and the level of energy is starting to permeate beyond the first few rows. With both “Dark Days”, taken from the group’s 2014 self-titled outing, and their 2019 standalone single “Free at Last” aired in the first part of the set, the gentle moshing soon transforms into a pretty sizeable pit. On the stage, the entire bad is now on vocal duty, giving the performance so much emotion and enveloping the venue in a warm and welcoming atmosphere — albeit one that also manages to be quite serious when their aggression is subdued and replaced with fragility in the likes of “Robot Writes a Love Song” off last year’s “Matilda” EP.

The raw emotion showcased in the first half of the concert makes a full return, first through “Sleep in the Heat” from 2016’s “The Dream Is Over”, which contains that classic “whoa-oh-oh-ohh” hook and has the entire room — front to back — singing along to the best of their abilities when Babcock extends his microphone out to us. And then, during “Reservoir”, which exudes aggression and results in a wall of death. These two tracks showcase the two sides to PUP perfectly, and it is so nice to see how well they manage to pack them into a full-fledged live spectacle. Babcock soon ditches his own guitar and completely loses it, jumping and leaping across the stage and loudly proclaiming how much fun he’s having. It makes you wonder just how mental his antics would be all of the time if he weren’t simultaneously playing the guitar for the vast majority of the set. There is even a Frank Carter moment when he decides to dive headfirst into the audience, mic in hand, before asking the audience to form the “gentlest circle pit ever” in another good reflection of PUP’s general style.

At one point, Babcock even tells us a story about how he and his bandmates went drinking earlier in the day, elaborating that it was with some recently graduated students, and that he was puzzled by why they were all wearing sailor hats. Everyone in the band seems to be in on it, as both Steve Sladkowski on lead guitar, Nester Chumak on bass guitar, and Zack Mykula on drums are visibly enjoying themselves. After a flawless rendition of “Familiar Patterns”, the set is starting to close in on the finishing line… But not until Babcock explains that PUP do not do encores, “because they suck!" I can totally get behind that, given that it is a pointless waste of time. But this is also the time when I realize that the band probably will not be playing one of my favourites, “Mabu”, which is the first track that I vividly remember the first time I listened to PUP’s self-titled début — I even remember the music video clear as day.

This realisation of course prompts me to yell: “MABU!", which is met with dead silence from the band on stage, followed by some laughter. Apparently, the group don’t tend to play this song live, and haven’t even rehearsed it in more than five years. But since everything seems to be going so well, Babcock & co. decide to give a go tonight anyway, which results in me hurling myself to the front of the crowd, giving it my absolute best in the raging pit. And you know what? PUP absolutely nails the piece, grinning and high-fiving each other after playing it to its conclusion. And after this amazing, unexpected intermezzo, the four musicians return to their setlist, delivering the classic duo “If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will” and “DVP” to a what is now a massive moshpit and people bouncing left and right. I’m not entirely sure what has taken PUP so long to visit this part of Denmark, but I seriously hope it won’t take them as long to visit it again — because this has been an incredible show. Just imagine what it could be like with a completely packed venue… Until next time!

Setlist:

• 1. Morbid Stuff
• 2. Kids
• 3. My Life Is Over and I Couldn’t Be Happier
• 4. Dark Days
• 5. Totally Fine
• 6. Robot Writes a Love Song
• 7. Free at Last
• 8. Sleep in the Heat
• 9. Reservoir
• 10. Old Wounds
• 11. Scorpion Hill
• 12. Closure
• 13. Waiting
• 14. Familiar Patterns
• 15. Mabu
• 16. If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will
• 17. DVP