This sounds like the beginning of something rather entertaining, doesn’t it? Well, you are on the right track. This is what happens when you get to see two Americans Bands play the Rockpile Nightclub on a Sunday night.

First to walk into the bar was Crobot. They hail all the way from Pottsville Pennsylvania. This is a high energy band that does not take themselves too seriously. They opened strong with their song Heavy Metal to give you enough steel to weather their storm.

They were really stoked to be the opener for CKY, but they were just as excited to be sharing their brand-new CD, “Obsidian” on this tour. Their song “Disappear” was a real stand out as the smoke was rising and the band was pulling out every stage move possible.

They drew a fine line of being really serious and a hint of comedy as the singer looked like a cross between Bruce Dickenson and Axel Rose. His stage antics were well timed out with enough erratic moves to keep you second guessing what he will do next.

The bass player looked like a nightmare biker half naked with all his tattoos hanging out glistening under the hot spotlights of the stage. His menacing form owned half the stage and when he jumped into the air, his energy was just a hulking machine ready to smash!

Sometimes their journey was not obvious. Take the song, “Necromancer”: It started off as a ghost story and quickly turned in a heavy Led Zeppelin song filled with a harmonica. It had a crazy journey between sounding like, “When the Levee breaks and the Macarena.

The highlight came when Bigfoot came walking on stage and rocked out with the band. This was one happy creature and even proceeded to jump into the crowd and disappear when the song was finished.

Just when you thought that it couldn’t get better, the singer got on the shoulders of the bass player and really got the crowd to finish off such an amazing opening set.

Here is Crobot in Action:

After that opener, the crowd got even closer to the stage to welcome a band they have felt close with for the past 25 years.  CKY was on tour celebrating 25 years together.

This is a band famous in the Pop Culture scene for making some memorable videos and contributing to the Jackass series.

This band is from West Chester, Pennsylvania and has a mix of skater punk, Alt Metal, stoner rock and even post grunge sounds. Overall, it didn’t matter to the fans; these guys were the shit back in the day and still mean something to the fans today.

CKY stands for Camp Kill Yourself, and their song titles certainly help with this tongue in cheek music. They reflect the humour and uneasiness of growing up in America. It is clear with songs like, “Hellions”, Shippenenburg” and “Disengage”.

As the show got a little deeper, the crowd would chant, CKY as if they never wanted this band to leave. I did talk to fans and it seemed unanimously that they were here to relive their youth and a lot of them were just seeing them for the first time. In fact, the last time the band was here in Toronto was about 2017. It was a perfect storm for rabid fans to show up and celebrate at the Rockpile.

The evening finished off with a touching song called, “All my friends are dead”. I guess if you lived the kind of lifestyle that Jackass promoted, this could very well be true.

Here is CKY in Action: